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THE WORLD'S EPOCH-MAKERS 



EDITED BY 

OLIPHANT SMEATON 



PaSCal and 

The Port Royalists 

By William Clark, D.D., LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S.C. 



Previous Volumes in this Series : — 

CRANMER AND THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. 
By A. D. Innes, M.A. 

WESLEY AND METHODISM. 

By F. J. Snell, M.A. 

LUTHER AND THE GERMAN REFORMATION. 
By Prof. T. M. Lindsay, D.D. 

BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM. 

By Arthur Lillie. 

WILLIAM HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK. 

By James Sime, M.A., F.R.S.E. 

FRANCIS AND DOMINIC. 

By Prof. J. Herkless, D.D. 

SAVONAROLA. 

By Rev. G. M 'Hardy, D.D. 

ANSELM AND HIS WORK. 

By Rev. A. C. Welch, M.A., B.D. 

MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER. 

By P. De Lacy Johnstone, M.A.(Oxon.) 

ORIGEN AND GREEK PATRISTIC THEOLOGY. 

By Rev. William Fairweather, M.A. 

THE MEDICI AND THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE. 
By Oliphant Smeaton, M.A. 

PLATO. 

By Prof. D. G. Ritchie, M.A., LL.D. 



THE WORLD'S EPOCH-MAKERS 



1 £ISC9,I and 

The Port Royalists 



By 

William Clark, D.D., LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S.C 



New York. Charles Scribner's Sons 

1902 



£( 



PREFACE 



The question has often been raised as to whether men 
are greater than their works or the reverse ; and a 
common opinion answers the question in the affirma- 
tive. An eminent French writer of our own days 1 
declares that the reverse of this is true. Almost all 
men, he maintains, are worth even less than the little 
which they do ; and this, he says, is proved by the 
great trouble they take to do it. Pascal, however, he 
says, is of the small number of those in whom the 
man infinitely transcends his actions. The writings 
of Pascal, he continues, are the finest that France 
possesses; yet they contain nothing of equal value 
with the Life of Pascal written by his sister in a few 
pages. It is of such writings and of such a life that 
we have to speak in this volume; and it is of un- 
speakable advantage to the student that he should 
possess a source of information respecting the early 
of Pascal of such unquestionable authority. 
Nearly all that we know of Pascal is derived from 

1 M. A. Suares in the R&mie den deux Mondes, 1st July 1900. 



vi PREFACE 

this Life and from his own writings, and especially 
from the Provincial Letters and the Thoughts. These 
works have been commented upon, controverted, and 
defended ; and there is little to be said on either side 
which has not been said already. In the present 
volume Pascal chiefly speaks for himself, and the 
comments upon his statements are generally brief. 
It would have been quite easy to expand them to a 
great length. When we are dealing with such subjects 
as the Augustinian controversy and the Defence of the 
Christian Religion, it would be easier to write pages 
than lines. In this respect the writer has endeavoured 
to give no more than is necessary for the clearing up 
of such points as may not be plain to the ordinary 
reader for whom this book is intended. 

Some acknowledgment should be made of the debt 
owing to previous labourers in the same field, and 
first to the editors of Pascal's works. I have used 
several editions of the Provincials, but special men- 
tion should be made of that of the Abbe Maynard, 
of the excellent edition of the Rev. John de Soyres, 
and the final edition of M. Faugere. With regard to 
the Thoughts, the obligations of all students to M. 
A^ictor Cousin and M. Faugere are incalculable; but 
the editions of Molinier and Havet also deserve 
grateful mention. It was Molinier who first gave the 
whole work in its complete and perfect form, and 
Havet has arranged the material thus prepared in the 
most convenient form. The great work on Port Royal 



PREFACE vii 

by M. Sainte Beuve is too well known and too highly 
esteemed to require more than this mention. 

The greatness of Pascal lifts him above all ordinary 
expressions of praise or admiration. He towers above 
all save the very greatest of the sons of men. It 
will be a source of satisfaction to the present writer 
if he shall have helped to make the immortal writings 
of this great genius known to some who were pre- 
viously unacquainted with them. 



WILLIAM CLARK. 



Trinity College, Toronto, 
Michaelmas, 1902. 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. PAGE 

PREFACE V 

I. EARLY DAYS 1 

II. SCIENTIFIC WORK 12 

III. SPIRITUAL LIFE 30 

IV. PORT ROYAL 57 

V. THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 73 

VI. LATER YEARS .139 

VII. THE THOUGHTS . 157 

VIII. DESTRUCTION OF PORT ROYAL . 227 

INDEX . .233 



PASCAL 

CHAPTER I 

Early Days 

Blaise Pascal was born at Clermont-Ferrand, on the 
19th of June 1623, in what was then the Province of 
Auvergne, and is now the Department of Puy-de- 
Dome. He was the son of Etienne Pascal, second 
president of the Court of Aids of Montferrand, whose 
ancestor, bearing the same name, had been ennobled 
by Louis XI. in 1478, although the family made no use 
of the rank thus accorded to them. In the year 1618 
Etienne Pascal married Antoinette Begon, a woman 
distinguished alike by her piety and her intelligence. 
She bore him four children, three of whom survived, 
Gilberte, the future Madame Perier, born in 1620 ; 
Blaise, three years younger, born in 1623; and 
Jacqueline (sometimes called Jacquette), born in 1625. 
The mother of Pascal, according to Madame Perier, 
died when he was three years old (1626); and his 
father, finding himself alone, applied himself more 
earnestly to the care of his family ; and, since he had 
no other son than Blaise, for this reason, and because 



2 PASCAL 

of the evidences of high intelligence which he recog- 
nised in him, he could not bring himself to commit his 
education to any other, but resolved to carry it on 
himself; which he did, being thoroughly qualified, as 
a mathematician and a natural philosopher, for such 
work. 

In 1631 ^tienne Pascal sold his office, left Clermont, 
and removed to Paris, in order to give himself up to 
the education of his children. There he became 
acquainted with the family of the celebrated advocate, 
Antoine Arnauld, the deadly enemy of the Jesuits, 
who had died in 1619. Of Antoine Arnauld's twenty 
children, ten remained. Of them Arnauld d'Andilly 
was the eldest, and Antoine Arnauld, the theologian, — 
known as the great Arnauld, — born in 1612, was the 
youngest. 

^Itienne Pascal entered upon the education of his 
children in the most regular and systematic manner, 
and with extraordinary devotion. A leading maxim 
with him, says Madame Perier, was to keep his son 
well ahead of his work; and it was for this reason 
that he would not begin to teach him Latin until he 
was twelve years old. During this interval, however, 
Blaise did not remain idle, for he was instructed in all 
the subjects which he could easily master. In parti- 
cular, his father taught him the nature of languages in 
general, and pointed out how they had been reduced 
to grammars and rules; and how these rules had 
exceptions which had to be noted. By this means 
his intelligence was exercised, so that he came to 
understand the principles upon which the rules of 
grammar were based, so as to facilitate his under- 
standing of them in particular cases. 



EARLY DAYS 3 

From these beginnings his father proceeded to 
instruct him in the phenomena of nature, such as the 
force of powder in a gun. Pascal took great pleasure 
in these studies; but he was never satisfied until he 
could learn the reasons of things ; and when these 
were not known, or his father did not explain them, 
or when the ordinary explanations seemed to him 
evasions, he was not satisfied, for he always displayed 
an admirable keenness of mind in detecting whatever 
was false ; and one might say that always and in 
everything, truth was the sole object of his inquiries, 
since nothing short of the knowledge of the truth 
could yield him satisfaction. Thus from his infancy 
he could give himself up to nothing which did not 
seem to him evidently true; so that when others 
failed to give him good reasons, he sought for them 
himself ; and when he had once taken hold of a thing, 
he did not let it go until he found an explanation 
which satisfied him. An example of this is given, 
when some one struck a plate with a knife on the 
table. He remarked that the plate emitted a loud 
sound ; but that as soon as a hand was laid upon it, 
the sound ceased. In examining into the reasons, he 
was led to make various other experiments on sounds. 
By this means, when he was only twelve years of age, 
he discovered many things which he embodied in a 
treatise which was found to be quite well reasoned. 
His astonishing genius in geometry made its appear- 
ance, when he was only twelve years of age, in a 
manner so remarkable that his sister dwells upon the 
incident with peculiar emphasis. Their father, she 
says, was a man learned in mathematics, and had 
frequent intercourse with many who were accomplished 



4 PASCAL 

in that science. But, as he purposed to instruct Blaise 
in languages, and as he knew that mathematics is a 
science which fills and greatly satisfies the mind, he 
wished that his son should have no knowledge of it, 
for fear of its leading him to neglect his Latin and 
other languages in which he wished to perfect him. 
For this reason he had put away all the books that 
treated of this subject, and he abstained from referring 
to it with his friends in his son's presence. 

This precaution, however, did not prevent the child's 
curiosity from being excited, so that he often asked 
his father to give him instructions in mathematics. 
His father refused, promising that, when he knew Latin 
and Greek, he should be taught mathematics as a 
reward. The boy, noting this resistance, asked him 
one day what was the nature of this science, and of 
what it treated. His father told him in general that 
it was the means of making figures rightly, and of 
discovering their relative proportions ; and at the same 
time he desired him not to speak or think more of the 
subject. But the mind of Pascal was one which could 
not be kept within bounds, having learnt that mathe- 
matics determined infallibly the relations of figures ; 
and so, in his hours of recreation, he set himself to 
meditate on that statement ; and being alone in a room 
in which he had been accustomed to take recreation, he 
took a piece of charcoal and made some figures on 
boards, trying, for example, to make a circle perfectly 
round, a triangle of which the sides and the angles 
were equal, and other things of the same kind. All 
this he accomplished by himself alone, and then he 
examined the proportions of the figures among them- 
selves. But as his father had taken so great care to 



EARLY DAYS 5 

conceal all these things from him, he did not know 
even the names of the figures. He was thus. under the 
necessity of making definitions for himself. He called 
a circle a round, a line a bar, and so with the others. 
After these definitions he made axioms, and finally 
complete demonstrations; and as, in these things, we 
go from one thing to another, he pushed his researches 
so far forward that he came to the thirty-second 
proposition of the first book of Euclid. 1 

Whilst Pascal was occupied in this work, his father 
came into the room without being heard. In fact, his 
son was so engrossed in his study that it was some 
time before he became aware of his father's presence. 
It would not be easy to say which was the more 
surprised, the son to see his father, who had forbidden 
these studies, or the father to see his son engrossed in 
them. But the surprise of the father was still greater 
when, after asking the boy what he was doing, he was 
told that he was engaged in a problem which formed 
the thirty-second proposition of the first book of Euclid. 
His father asked him what had led him to these 
investigations. He said it was because he had dis- 
covered certain other things ; and when he was asked 
how he had arrived at these, he told him of certain 
demonstrations which he had made ; and so on, going 
back and explaining by the names of the " round " and 
the " bar," he came to his definitions and his axioms. 

His father was so startled at the greatness of the 
genius thus displayed that he left him without saying 
a word, and went to see M. Le Pailleur, who was his 

1 The exterior angle of a triangle is equal to the two interior and 
opposite angles ; and the three interior angles are together equal to two 
right angles. 



6 PASCAL 

intimate friend, and a man of great learning. When 
he came to him he remained immovable, like a man in 
a transport. M. Le Pailleur noting this, and also that 
he was shedding tears, was alarmed, and implored him 
no longer to conceal the cause of his trouble. He 
replied, "I am not weeping from sorrow, but from 
joy. You know the care that I have taken to keep 
from my son the knowledge of geometry, for fear of 
diverting him from his other studies. But see what 
he has done ! " and then he showed him all that he had 
discovered; so that one might say that, in a certain 
sense, his son had invented mathematics. M. Le 
Pailleur was no less surprised than the father of Pascal 
had been, and told him that he did not think it fair 
to restrain such a mind further, and to conceal this 
knowledge from him, and that now he ought to be 
allowed to see the books without further restraint. 

After this his father gave him Euclid's Elements to 
study in his hours of recreation. He read them and 
understood them entirely by himself, without having 
any need of explanation. And not only did he continue 
his studies in private; he also took part in certain 
conferences, held in the house of Father Mersenne, 
which formed the nucleus of the Academy of Sciences, 
established in 1666, four years after the death of Pascal. 
But before this time it seems to have taken the name 
of Academy, since Pascal, as early as 1654, presented 
to it two Latin treatises on mathematics addressed, 
" Celeberrimse Matheseos Academise Parisiensi." In 
these conferences Pascal took a leading part, both in 
criticism and in production. Often there were con- 
tributions examined from Italy, Germany, and other 
foreign countries; and his judgments were carefully 



EARLY DAYS 7 

considered by the others as of no less importance than 
those of his seniors ; for he had such clear insight that 
he often discovered mistakes which the others had 
overlooked. Yet he employed in this study of 
geometry only his hours of recreation, for he learned 
Latin by the rules which his father had made on 
purpose for him. But as he found in this science the 
truth which he had so evidently sought for, he was so 
satisfied with it, that he gave his whole mind to it ; so 
that, in spite of his giving but little time to this study, 
he made such progress in it that at the age of sixteen 
he composed a treatise on Conic Sections which seemed 
such a great intellectual effort that it was said to be 
the most powerful work since the days of Archimedes. 
Among those who took part in these conferences 
were such names as Roberval, Carcavi, Le Pailleur, 
Mydorge, Hardy, Desargues, all men of high attain- 
ments in various branches of natural science, and 
especially in mathematics. There was a general desire 
among these savants that Pascal should publish his 
treatise on Conic Sections, as they wished that so 
surprising a work by one so young should not be 
unknown. It is said that the work excited the mingled 
admiration and incredulity of Descartes. It would 
seem that the incredulity preponderated, and that 
Descartes bore somewhat grudging testimony to the 
achievement of Pascal, and even suggested that he was 
more indebted to his predecessors than he was willing 
to confess. His other fellow - workers were more 
generous, and urged the publication of his treatise. 
Pascal, however, seems to have cared comparatively 
little for the fame that might accrue to him. He 
promised to give certain treatises to the public ; and 



8 PASCAL 

after his death some were found ready for publication ; 
but they were not published, and they are now lost. 
In a paper which was prepared, Pascal declared that 
the first discoverer of much that he put forth was 
" M. Desargues, one of the great minds of this time, 
and one of the most versed in mathematics, and 
particularly in conic sections. ... I must confess," he 
goes on, " that I owe the little which I have discovered 
on this subject to his writings; and that I have 
endeavoured, as far as I could, to imitate his method 
on this subject." If the appreciation of Descartes 
was grudging, it was otherwise with Leibnitz, who per- 
used Pascal's manuscript in 1676, and expressed an 
enthusiastic admiration of the ability there displayed. 

It has been mentioned that Pascal's father removed 
to Paris when his son was seven years of age. Some 
years after settling there, the family were called to 
endure a great misfortune. llltienne Pascal had 
invested his savings in bonds of the Hotel de Ville. 
In order to provide for the necessities of the Govern- 
ment, Richelieu reduced the interest on these bonds, 
which led to earnest protests from the investors, 
Pascal's father among the rest. The meeting at which 
they assembled was declared to be seditious ; and, to 
escape the Bastille, he first went into concealment in 
Paris, and subsequently fled into the country. He was 
thus cut off from his friends, and from his family, whom 
he was able to see only at intervals. "By what might 
seem a strange accident the family recovered the favour 
of the great Cardinal. In the year 1639 he determined 
to have Scudery's play of L Amour Tyrannique acted 
by girls. Among those who were induced to take 
part in the performance was Pascal's younger sister 



EARLY DAYS 9 

Jacqueline, then thirteen years of age, who seems to 
have possessed considerable dramatic gifts. The 
Cardinal was so charmed by her acting, that he allowed 
her to present a petition on behalf of her father. The 
incident is described in a letter from Jacqueline to her 
father, in which she mentions that the Cardinal had 
been made acquainted with the truth of the matter, 
and had learnt that her father had been guilty of no 
offence against the Government; and she goes on to 
describe her interview with Richelieu, and his decision 
that her father might return. The appeal of Jacque- 
line, she tells her father, was enforced by Madame 
d'Aiguillon, who not only spoke in high terms of her 
father, but informed the Cardinal of the great gifts of 
her brother. 

This letter was written on 4th April 1639, and it 
shows us that the gifts of her brother were already 
widely recognised. The father availed himself at 
once of the permission to return, immediately pre- 
sented himself to Richelieu, and received from him 
the assurance that something should be done for him 
without delay. This promise was kept, since shortly 
afterwards he was appointed Intendant of Rouen, and 
settled in that city in 1641. In this same year his elder 
daughter, Gilberte, was married to her cousin, Florin 
Perier; and two years afterwards removed with him 
to Clermont, where he had been appointed a counsellor 
in the Court of Aids. At Rouen the family became 
intimate with Corneille, who was a native of that city, 
and had recently returned thither. Everything appears 
to have now gone well with the family, except that 
Blaise, through the closeness of his devotion to his 
studies, seems already to have seriously injured his 



io PASCAL 

health, which was never robust. His sister says that 
he developed infirmities about this time which never 
left him, so that he used to say that, from the age of 
eighteen, he had not passed a single day without pain. 
These infirmities, however, she adds, were not always 
equally painful, and whenever he had a short respite 
from pain, his mind ever turned to new investigations. 
It was at this time, when he was twenty-three years of 
age, that he took up and carried on the experiments 
of Torricelli, of which more hereafter. It has been 
remarked that his mathematical and scientific studies 
were carried on mostly in his hours of recreation, and 
his literary education was certainly not neglected. 
He obtained a sufficient acquaintance with Latin, which 
he could read and write without difficulty, whilst his 
knowledge of Greek enabled him at least to verify the 
translations from that language. He could also read 
Italian. It would appear that his father did not assist 
him in the study of ancient and modern literature, of 
which, however, he obtained a considerable knowledge 
by his subsequent studies, although he was never an 
extensive reader. With theology and philosophy he 
had only a very general acquaintance. 

It would seem that religion formed no part of the 
system of education planned for Pascal by his father. 
It was not that he differed from the doctrines of the 
Church. In habit and in practice he was a devout 
believer. But he seems to have shrunk from anything 
like philosophising in religion, from the introduction 
of metaphysic into theology. In a practical way he 
united, and taught his children to unite, the common 
life of persons living in the world with the practice of 
religion. 



EARLY DAYS n 

During his time as Intendant at Rouen, Etienne 
Pascal discharged faithfully the duties of his office, and 
gained the friendship and respect of those around him. 
His work was by no means an easy one, in consequence 
of recent troubles in Normandy ; but his integrity and 
devotion commanded confidence and respect, whilst he 
advanced the fortunes of his family by all legitimate 
means. It was in such an environment that young 
Pascal grew up to manhood. 



CHAPTER II 

Scientific Work 

It may be convenient here to bring together seme brief 
notes on the work of Pascal in mathematics and 
physical science, which, although inadequate and in- 
complete, may suffice for our present purpose. It was 
during the residence of the family at Rouen that the 
principal part of Pascal's work in science was accom- 
plished. Reference has already been made to his dis- 
covery of the thirty-two propositions of the first book 
of Euclid at the age of twelve, and to his treatise on 
Conic Sections when he was sixteen. We have also 
mentioned the part which he took in the discussions 
of the " Academy." 

We have mentioned that Pascal did not publish his 
treatise on Conic Sections ; but an abstract of this 
treatise, bearing the date 1640, when Pascal was seven- 
teen, still exists. With his usual modesty he explains 
that he keeps back several of his discoveries until they 
have been examined by men of ability. " The method 
which he followed was that introduced by his con- 
temporary Desargues, namely, the transformation of 
geometrical figures by conical or optical projection. 
In this way he established the famous theorem, that 
the intersections of the three pairs of opposite sides 



SCIENTIFIC WORK 13 

of a hexagon inscribed in a conic are collinear. This 
proposition, which he called the mystic hexagram, he 
made the keystone of his theory; from it alone he 
deduced more than four hundred corollaries, embracing, 
according to his own account, the conies of Apollonius, 
and other results innumerable." x Not long after this 
he invented a calculating machine ; but the practical 
difficulties connected with the construction of the 
machine prevented its coming to be of any practical 
use ; and this seems to have been the fate of all similar 
inventions, however promising. 

By that which appeared an accident the attention 
of Pascal was drawn to a matter of greater importance. 
In October 1646 the family received a visit from 
M. Petit, a disciple of Descartes, who gave them an 
account of experiments recently made in Italy on 
the maxim that " Nature abhors a vacuum." It was 
a subject which had seriously occupied the attention 
of Galileo and his pupil Torricelli. It was by the 
latter that the suggestion was made which it was 
left for Pascal to verify by experiment. In order to 
ascertain what might be learnt from nature, he tried 
experiments with different kinds of liquids, water, 
oil, wine, etc., and with tubes of different sizes; and 
he performed the experiments in presence of many 
persons in order to call forth criticisms and objections. 
Pascal was satisfied with the result of his experiments 
as far as they went, and drew certain conclusions from 
them. He mentions that among the four or five 
hundred people of all classes who witnessed them, 
there were five or six Jesuit fathers of the College of 
Rouen. 

1 Professor Chrystal in Ency. Brit. (ed. 9), vol. xviii. p. 338. 



14 PASCAL 

Naturally the scientific world became greatly excited 
over these experiments, some recognising their import- 
ance, and others denying to Pascal all credit in con- 
nection with them. In order to show clearly his 
own share in the investigation, Pascal put forth, 4th 
October 1647, a narrative under the title of Noavelles 
experiences touchant le Vide. He concluded — (1) 
that Nature abhors a vacuum, although it is false to 
say that it cannot tolerate a vacuum in any degree ; 
(2)| this abhorrence is not as strong for a great vacuum 
as for a small ; (3) the power of this vacuum is limited. 
Pascal at that time went no further in regard to the 
conclusions which he drew from his experiments. 
These conclusions, however, were not unimportant, 
seeing that they establish the fact, declared impossible 
by Aristotle, that a void was actually found ; a doctrine 
unpleasant to believers, because atheists frequently 
had recourse to it in order to explain the fact of 
movement without having recourse to God. 

With regard to the claims of Pascal in connection 
with these experiments two things are to be said : 
first, that he laid no claim to the origination of these 
experiments, which, he explains, had been made in Italy 
four years before. Moreover, he was so far from'either 
denying the claims of Torricelli, or owing anything to 
his investigations, that he was actually unacquainted, 
with the explanation which he had suggested. Pascal's 
conclusions speedily found critics and objectors; and 
prominent among them was Father Noel, the Jesuit. 
We have here probably an explanation of two circum- 
stances in the life of Pascal, his coldness with Descartes, 
and his lifelong opposition to the Company of Jesus. 
Father Noel in his criticism had drawn arguments 



SCIENTIFIC WORK 15 

from Descartes in support of his positions ; and Pascal, 
without naming the great philosopher, criticised some 
of his methods. On the other hand, it has been 
suggested, with some probability, that the Jesuits 
may in after days have remembered that Pascal was 
an old adversary, and that he may have learnt in this 
controversy something of the contempt which he 
showed for them in his letters. 

In his reply to Father Noel, Pascal defines the limits 
of science and faith. " In that which concerns the 
sciences, he says, we believe only our senses and our 
reason. We reserve for the mysteries of the faith 
which the Holy Spirit has revealed that submission 
which asks for no sensible or rational proof. But 
you, in your fancy, imagine a matter of which you 
suppose the qualities, a subtle air which has inclina- 
tions. And if you are asked to show it, you answer 
that it is not visible. Your hypotheses satisfy you ; 
and we are to take that for demonstration. You give, 
too, terms which you employ, and definitions of which 
the term to be defined supplies all the contents. 1 It is 
in this way that you define Light : ' A luminary move- 
ment of rays composed of lucid bodies, that is to say, 
luminous.' That is a definition to which, having 
regard to the conditions of a true definition, I should 
find a difficulty in accustoming myself. Such, father, 
are my sentiments, which I shall always submit to 
yours. " 

The controversy was continued for some time with- 
out much result, with delicate irony on the part of 
Pascal, with something like insolence on the part of 
Father Noel. At last &tienne Pascal comes in and 
1 What we should call verbal or analytical definitions. 



I 6 PASCAL 

administers to the good father a brotherly admoni- 
tion. " When you are at a loss for argument," he says, 
" you have recourse to insult. Now, you must know 
that it is a general maxim of civilised society that 
neither age, nor condition, nor position, nor office can 
give a man the right to hurl invectives at anyone." 

By degrees Pascal came to see further into the 
question under discussion, and in the month of 
November 1647 — he was then only twenty-four — he 
began to discern a new meaning in the experiment 
of Torricelli. He began to ask himself not merely 
whether the space above the mercury is really void, 
but what is the cause that keeps the column of 
mercury in suspense. Galileo had demonstrated that 
the air is heavy. Torricelli had suggested the idea that 
the weight of the air might be the cause of the 
phenomenon which he had discovered. Pascal had 
now become acquainted with this idea of Torricelli, 
and pointed out that it was only an idea, a possible 
explanation, an hypothesis, whilst the experiment had 
not proved that another explanation was impossible. 
It was therefore necessary to try another experiment, 
in order to show that the weight of the air was the 
sole admissible cause of the suspension of the mercury 
in the tube. 

Pascal saw clearly what must be the nature of the 
experiment that should settle this controversy. The 
experiment must be repeated several times in one day 
with the same quicksilver, in the same tube, at one 
time at the foot, at another at the top of a high 
mountain. If it should happen that the quicksilver 
should stand lower at the top than at the foot of 
the mountain, it would follow necessarily that the 



SCIENTIFIC WORK 17 

weight and pressure of the air is the sole cause of 
this suspension of the quicksilver, and not the 
abhorrence of the vacuum, since it is quite certain that 
there is much more weight of air at the foot of the 
mountain than at the summit, whilst it could not 
be contended that Nature abhors a vacuum at the foot 
of a mountain more than at the top. 

Pascal saw no opportunity of testing the principle 
in Normandy, and naturally thought of the Puy-de- 
Dome, which rises, near his old birthplace in Auvergne, 
to the height of 3000 feet. Being unable, through 
the state of his health, to conduct the experiment 
personally, he wrote to his brother-in-law, M. Perier, 
16th November 1647, asking him to carry it out, and 
explaining to him the necessary process. Various 
circumstances intervened to hinder compliance with 
his request; but at last the experiment was tried 19th 
September 1648, and with completely satisfactory 
results, which were immediately communicated to 
Pascal. Pascal tried the same experiment at the 
base and at the top of the tower of St. Jacques in 
Paris, and then in a private house, and always with 
the same results. It was found in each case, in 
Auvergne and in Paris, that the column of quicksilver 
fell in proportion as they rose from the ground. 

Sir David Brewster 1 has given an account of the 
experiment, taken almost literally from the letter of 
Perier to Pascal ; and some extracts from this letter 
may suffice: "On the morning of Saturday the 19th 
September, the day fixed for the interesting observation, 
the weather was unsettled ; but about five o'clock the 
summit of the Puy-de-D6me began to appear through the 

1 North British Review, August 1844. 



1 8 PASCAL 

clouds, and Perier resolved to proceed with the experi- 
ment. . . . He accordingly summoned his friends, and 
at eight in the morning there assembled in the gardens 
of the Peres Minimes, about a league below the town, 
M. Bannier of the Peres Minimes ; M. Mosnier, canon of 
the Cathedral Church ; along with Messrs. la Ville and 
Begon, counsellors of the Court of Aids, and M. la 
Porte, doctor and professor of medicine in Clermont. 
These five individuals were not only distinguished in 
their respective professions, but also by their scientific 
acquirements; and M. Perier expresses his delight at 
having been on this occasion associated with them. 

" M. Perier began the experiment by pouring into 
a vessel 16 lb. of quicksilver, which he had rectified 
during the three preceding days. He then took two 
glass tubes, 4 feet long, of the same bore, hermetically 
sealed at one end and open at the other ; and making 
the ordinary experiment of a vacuum with both, he 
found that the mercury stood in each of them at the 
same level, and at the height of 26 inches 3| lines. 
This experiment was repeated twice with the same 
result. One of these glass tubes, with the mercury 
standing in it, was left under the care of M. Chastin, 
one of the religious of the House, who undertook to 
observe and mark any changes in it that might take 
place during the day; and the party already named 
set out with the other tube for the summit of the Puy- 
de-D6me, about 3000 feet 1 above their first station. 
Before arriving there, they found that the mercury 
stood at the height of 23 inches and 2 lines — no less 
than 3 inches and 1^ lines lower than it stood at the 
Minimes. The party 'were struck with admiration 
1 500 toises, a toise being about 6 feet. 



SCIENTIFIC WORK 19 

and astonishment at this result ' ; and ' so great was 
their surprise that they resolved to repeat the experi- 
ment under various forms.' 

" The glass tube, or the barometer, as we may call it, 
was placed in various positions on the summit of the 
mountain — sometimes in the small chapel which is 
there; sometimes in an exposed, and sometimes in a 
sheltered position ; sometimes when the wind blew, and 
sometimes when it was calm ; sometimes in rain, and 
sometimes in a fog; and under all these various 
influences, which fortunately took place during the 
same day, the quicksilver stood at the same height of 
23 inches 2 lines. During their descent of the moun- 
tain they repeated the experiment at Lafon-de-1'Arbe, 
an intermediate station, nearer the Minimes than the 
summit of the Puy, ' and they found the mercury to 
stand at the height of 25 inches — a result with which 
the party was greatly pleased,' as indicating the relation 
between the height of the mercury and the height of 
the station. Upon reaching the Minimes they found 
that the mercury had not changed its height, notwith- 
standing the inconstancy of the weather, which had 
been alternately clear, windy, rainy, and foggy. M. 
Perier repeated the experiments with both the glass 
tubes, and found the height of the mercury to be still 
26 inches 3|- lines. On the following morning M. 
de la Marc, priest of the Oratory, to whom M. Perier 
had mentioned the preceding results, proposed to have 
the experiment repeated at the top and bottom of the 
towers of Notre Dame in Clermont. He accordingly 
yielded to his request, and found the difference to be 
2 lines. 

" When Pascal received these results, all the difficulties 



20 PASCAL 

were removed ; and perceiving from the last two obser- 
vations . . . that 20 toises, or about 120 feet, produce 
a change of two lines, and 7 toises, or 42 feet, a change 
of \ a line, he made the observation at the top and 
bottom of the tower of St. Jacques 2 de la Boucherie, 
which was about 24 or 25 toises, or about 150 feet 
high, and he found a difference of more than 2 lines in 
the mercurial column ; and in a private house 90 steps 
high he found a difference of ^ a line. . . . After this 
important experiment was made, Pascal intimated to 
M. Perier that different states of the weather would 
occasion differences in the barometer, according as it 
was cold, hot, dry, or moist ; and in order to put this 
opinion to the test of experiment, M. Perier instituted 
a series of observations, which he continued from the 
beginning of 1649 till March 1651. Corresponding 
observations were made at the same time at Paris and 
at Stockholm by the French ambassador, M. Chanut, 
and Descartes ; and from these it appeared that the 
mercury rises in weather which is cold, cloudy, and 
damp, and falls when the weather is hot and dry, and 
during rain and snow, but still with such irregularities 
that no general rule could be established. At Clermont 
the difference between the highest and the lowest state 
of the mercury was 1 inch 3 J lines ; at Paris the same, 
and at Stockholm 2| lines." 

It is worth while to dwell upon these details, because 
in this way the question of the rise and fall of the 
barometer, and the theory of the suspension of water 
in a tube, was finally settled by experiment, and not 

1 The tower was then part of the Church of St. Jacques which was 
demolished in 1789. The tower is still a conspicuous object in Paris, and 
has a statue of Pascal in commemoration of this work. 



SCIENTIFIC WORK 21 

until then. It had been suggested by Torricelli, who 
showed the direction in which the solution was to be 
sought ; and Pascal never called in question the claims 
of Torricelli ; but it was he who tried the experiment 
and proved the truth of the theory. As it has been 
remarked, Galileo proved that the air was heavy, 
Torricelli suggested that its weight was the cause of 
the suspension of water or mercury in a tube ; it was 
left to Pascal to demonstrate the truth of the theory 
by experiment, and he claimed no more than this. 

It need not surprise us to know that the Jesuits did 
not regard the success of Pascal with satisfaction. 
Without reference being made to him by name, in certain 
theses presented at their College of Montf errand he was 
accused of claiming to be the inventor of a certain 
experiment of which Torricelli was said to be the author. 
The theses were addressed to a friend of Pascal, M. 
Ribeyre, first president in the Court of Aids at Clermont- 
Ferrand ; and it was to him that Pascal addressed his 
defence, 12th July 1651, in which he explained in 
detail the history of his experiment, pointing out 
what had been done in Italy, what the French had 
learnt from this, and that he had himself failed at first 
to mention the name of Torricelli simply because he 
was not then acquainted with it ; but that as soon as 
he knew it, he hastened to express his satisfaction that 
the suggestion had come from a man of such eminence. 

M. de Ribeyre, in reply, told Pascal that he felt 
these accusations too deeply. He assures him that the 
remarks of his critic arose not from any personal 
feeling, but from the eagerness of a man of science. 
And as for any charges that might be brought against 
Pascal himself, they were unworthy of notice. " Your 



22 PASCAL 

candour and your sincerity," said M. de Ribeyre, " are 
too well known to me that I should allow myself to 
believe that you could ever be convicted of having 
done anything inconsistent with the virtue which you 
profess, and which appears in all your actions and 
deportment. I honour and reverence your virtue more 
than your knowledge." 

This controversy has been almost forgotten in the 
presence of one more serious. Between the time of the 
experiments at Rouen, in 1646, and that of the letter to 
M. Perier, Pascal had two interviews with Descartes in 
Paris, on the 23rd and 24th of September 1647. Of 
these interviews we possess a very interesting account, 
written on 25th September, by Jacqueline Pascal to her 
sister, Madame Perier. Descartes expressed, through 
some friends, a great desire to see Pascal ; and although 
the latter was in a weak state of health, it was not 
thought proper to refuse the request of so eminent a 
man. Besides Descartes' friends, Pascal's friend M. 
Roberval was present at the interview. From 
Jacqueline Pascal's report it would appear that 
Descartes still held that there was some "subtle 
matter" within the tube which accounted for the 
phenomena, and it seems probable that Pascal more or 
less evaded the remark, so that his friend M. Roberval 
imagined he had some difficulty in speaking. For this 
reason he interposed in the discussion, which led to 
some unpleasantness between him and Descartes. 1 

Such is, in substance, what we find in Jacqueline's 
letter to her sister, 25th September 1647 ; but sub- 
sequently (11th June 1649) Descartes writes from 

1 "lis se chanterent goguette," says the latter writer, "un peu plus 
fort que jeu." 



SCIENTIFIC WORK 23 

Stockholm, where he was then living, to his friend 
Carcavi, asking to be made acquainted with the 
success of Pascal's experiments at the Puy-de-D6me. 
" I had the right," he says, " to expect this from him 
rather than from you, because it was I who recom- 
mended him, two years ago, to try this experiment; 
and I assured him that although I had not tried it, I 
had no doubt of its success." On the 17th of June, 
writing to the same correspondent, he declares again, 
" It is I who entreated M. Pascal, two years ago, to try 
the experiment ; and I assured him of success as being- 
altogether in conformity with my principles, without 
which he would not have thought of it, since he was of 
a contrary opinion." 

A controversy has arisen as to the significance of 
these statements, some contending that Pascal con- 
cealed the help he obtained from Descartes ; others, that 
Descartes has endeavoured improperly to claim what 
belongs to Pascal. There seems to be no sufficient 
ground for either accusation. If we may trust the 
testimony of Jacqueline Pascal, it would appear that 
the views of Descartes were far from clear at the time 
of his interview with Pascal ; and it is incredible that 
Pascal, who acknowledged so freely the work of his 
predecessors, should make no allusion to Descartes, if 
he had really gained anything from him. On the 
other hand, it is quite conceivable that Descartes, in 
later years, should imagine that his views at this time 
had been clearer than they were. At least it seems 
evident that no change took place in the relations of 
Descartes with the Pascal family; and subsequently 
they are found exchanging views on the subject of the 
suspension of the mercury in the tube. It may be 



24 PASCAL 

added that posterity has so far settled the controversy 
as to decide that Pascal is fully entitled to the credit of 
the experiments on the Puy-de-D6me, and of the con- 
clusions there established. 

This discovery was important in itself, but it was 
even more so as leading him to a general theory of the 
equilibrium of liquids, which he set forth in his 
treatise on the Equilibrium of Fluids, and in his 
treatise on the Weight of the Mass of the Atmosphere, 
composed in 1651. Certain points had already been 
made clear ; namely, that the pressure of a fluid on its 
base is as the product of the base multiplied by the 
height of the fluid, and that all fluids press equally 
on all sides of the vessels enclosing them. But it still 
remained to determine exactly the measure of the 
pressure, in order to deduce the general condition of 
equilibrium. "But," says Sir David Brewster, "the 
most remarkable part of his treatise on the Equilibrium 
of Fluids, and one which of itself would have im- 
mortalised him, is his application of the general principle 
to the construction of what he calls the 'mechanical 
machine for multiplying forces,' — an effect which, he 
says, may be produced to any extent we choose, as one 
may, by means of this machine, raise a weight of any 
magnitude. This new machine is the Hydrostatic 
Press, first introduced by our celebrated countryman, 
Mr. Bramah. 

" Pascal's treatise on the weight of the whole mass of 
air forms the basis of the modern science of Pneumatics. 
In order to prove that the mass of air presses by its 
weight on all the bodies which it surrounds, and also 
that it is elastic and compressible, a balloon half filled 
with air was carried to the top of the Puy-de-Ddme. 



SCIENTIFIC WORK 25 

It gradually inflated itself as it ascended, and when it 
reached the summit it was quite full and swollen, as if 
fresh air had been blown into it ; or, what is the same 
thing, it swelled in proportion as the weight of the 
column of air which pressed upon it diminished. When 
again brought down it became more and more flaccid, 
and when it reached the bottom it resumed its original 
condition. In the nine chapters of which the treatise 
consists, he shows that all the phenomena or effects 
hitherto ascribed to the horror of a vacuum arise from 
the weight of the mass of air ; and after explaining the 
variable pressure of the atmosphere in different localities 
and in its different states, and the rise of the water in 
pumps, he calculates that the whole mass of air round 
our globe weighs 8,983,889,440,000,000,000 French 
pounds." 

After this Pascal returned with renewed zeal to his 
mathematical studies, and several important essays 
were the result, e.g. his treatise on the Arithmetical 
Triangle and his problems on the Cycloid. By means 
of the former he solved a number of theorems which 
could not easily have been demonstrated in any other 
way, and " in finding the coefficients of different terms 
of a binomial raised to an even and positive power." 
This treatise was printed in the year 1654, but was not 
published until 1668, after the death of the author. 

The treatise on the Cycloid belongs to a somewhat 
later period. " The Cycloid was a famous curve in 
those days ; it had been discussed by Galileo, Descartes, 
Fermat, Roberval, and Torricelli, who had in turn ex- 
hausted their skill upon it." 1 It was during a severe 
attack of toothache in 1658, when he found sleep 

1 Chrystal. 



26 PASCAL 

impossible, that Pascal concentrated his attention on 
this subject; and "within eight days, and in the midst 
of cruel sufferings, he devised a method which embraced 
all the problems, — a method founded upon the sum- 
mation of certain series, of which he had given the 
elements in his writings accompanying his Traite du 
Triangle Arithmdtiqwe. From this discovery there 
was only a step to that of the Differential and Integral 
Calculus ; and it may be confidently presumed that, if 
Pascal had proceeded with his mathematical studies, 
he would have anticipated Leibnitz and Newton in 
the glory of their great discovery." 1 

Pascal may be said to have ended his scientific work 
by his writings on the Cycloid. But there was an 
invention to which he gave some attention towards the 
close of his life — that of which Madame Perier speaks 
in a letter to one of the Arnaulds as "l'affaire des 
carrosses." Pascal seems to have suggested the idea 
of having public cars or omnibuses on certain main 
routes in Paris, on which persons might be conveyed 
" a cinq sols " — for five cents. It is at least a fact that 
a patent was granted to the Due de Roannez, a friend 
of Pascal, together with some other noblemen, January 
1662. According to Madame Perier, Pascal interested 
himself in the undertaking, which proved successful, 
and he asked to have a thousand francs in advance, to 
send to the poor at Blois, because the need was too 
pressing to admit of delay. When it was suggested to 
him that the enterprise might not prove sufficiently 
successful to bear this charge, he answered that he 
could pay back the amount out of his own property ; 
by which, says his sister, he showed them the truth of 
1 Bossut. 



SCIENTIFIC WORK 27 

what he had often said to them, that he had no wish 
to have " money except for the relief of the poor." 

A short essay written by Pascal about the time of 
the experiments on the Puy-de-D6me, in the year 1647, 
entitled, Preface sur le TraiU du Vide, should here 
be noticed. There are, he says, two kinds of things, 
those which depend only on the memory, namely, matters 
of fact or of institution, whether divine or human; 
and those which fall under the senses or under the 
reason, namely, truths to be discovered, the object of 
mathematical and physical sciences. 

Those two domains, he says, are entirely separated 
the one from the other. In the first, authority alone 
is admitted. In fact, this alone can make us acquainted 
with past events. In theology particularly it is 
sovereign, sufficing to raise into truths things the 
most incomprehensible, as well as to render uncertain 
the most probable. But in the domain of physics and 
mathematics authority has no force. This will be con- 
ceded without difficulty in regard to mathematics. In 
physics the problem is to find the laws of nature, that 
is to say, the constant relations of phenomena. Now 
authority is of no use in making us acquainted with 
the facts which pass under our eyes, and it could not 
prove that those facts are explained by such or such a 
natural cause. Nor is it more useful in mathematics ; 
for the definitions which we might form in that subject, 
in order to derive our arguments from them, could be 
only fictions of our mind to which Nature is in no way 
bound to conform herself. Experience and reasoning, 
the former as point of departure and verification of the 
latter, such is the only method. 

From this difference of method between theology and 



28 PASCAL 

physics there results a fundamental difference of 
character. Theology is unchangeable. Physics is 
submitted to a continual progress. It is necessary to 
confound the insolence of those false sages who claim 
for Aristotle the inviolable respect which is due to God 
alone. The progress which the physicaFsciences demand 
is a consequence of their double principle. On the one 
side, experiments multiply continually, each of them 
bringing new knowledge, whether positive or negative. 
On the other side, it is not with human reason as with 
the instinct of animals. The latter have no other 
destiny than to maintain themselves in a state of 
limited perfection ; an instinct always the same suffices 
for them. But man is produced for infinity; his in- 
telligence, therefore, goes on perfecting itself without 
ceasing. He begins with ignorance. The experience 
which he acquires urges him to reason, and the effects 
of his reasonings increase indefinitely. Then, thanks 
to memory, thanks to the means which men possess for 
preserving their knowledge, not only does each one of 
them advance from day to day in the sciences, but all 
of them unitedly make continual progress in them, so 
that all the succession of men, during the course of so 
many centuries, ought to be considered as one man who 
is always living and who learns continually. 

What then, he asks, is our true relation to antiquity ? 
Words cheat us. Those whom we call ancients were 
new in all things, and formed properly the infancy of 
humanity. It is we who are the ancients ; and if 
antiquity could be a title to respect, it is we who 
should be respectable. But nothing is, in fact, re- 
spectable but truth, which is neither young nor old, 
but eternal. If any of the ancients have been great, 



SCIENTIFIC WORK 29 

it is because, in their efforts to attain greatness, they 
have used the discoveries of their predecessors only as 
means by which to excel them. By what right are we 
to be hindered from making the same use of what they 
have done ? 

There was here no disparagement of antiquity. The 
discoveries of the ancients were steps by which we 
have risen to more complete knowledge. We see 
further than they did, because we have begun where 
they ended. The scientific principles here enunciated 
by Pascal are now regarded as a matter of course ; but 
it was otherwise in his time. To these principles he 
was constantly loyal. The treatise to which we have 
been referring belongs to the period of his experiments 
on the Puy-de-D6me, and it was some little time before 
this that his religious character assumed a new com- 
plexion. How he adjusted the claims of God and those 
of science we shall endeavour to see in the sequel. 



CHAPTER III 

Spiritual Life 

The Pascal family were always eminently respectable : 
not only all of them of great and recognised ability, 
but people who were well known for the discharge of 
all their social and religious duties; but apparently 
without a touch of fanaticism or asceticism. Without 
being in the least degree chargeable with lukewarm- 
ness, it could still perhaps be said of them that they 
knew " how to make the best of both worlds." They 
certainly believed that " godliness is profitable for all 
things, having promise of the life which now is, and 
of that which is to come." But a great change was 
impending. 

In the beginning of 1646 Etienne Pascal, then about 
fifty years of age, having gone out on some affair of 
charity, slipped on the ice and dislocated his thigh. 
During his illness he was attended by two gentlemen, 
living near Rouen, who had a great reputation for the 
treatment of this kind of injuries. These gentlemen 
were brothers, and their names were M. de la Bou- 
teillerie and M. des Landes. They were men of 
property, and had devoted themselves to these studies 
from an interest in them, and from the desire to benefit 
their fellow-men. 



SPIRITUAL LIFE 31 

Impressed by the preaching of M. Guillebert, cure 
of Rouville, a devoted priest and a follower of the 
Jansenist St. Cyran, they had placed themselves under 
his direction, and had been led to give up their whole 
life to the service of God, to the working out of their 
own salvation, and to the service of the necessitous 
around them. One of them built a hospital at the end 
of his park, and gave his children to the service of the 
Church ; the other, who was childless, provided beds for 
the hospital and attended on the poor. They passed a 
certain time in the Pascal family, in order to make 
sure that the healing of the father was complete. Their 
deportment and their conversation deeply impressed 
their hosts ; and thus they led them to the consideration 
of the true nature of religion, and particularly of the 
question as to whether the pursuit of success in the 
world could be connected with the practice of religion. 

Madame Perier tells us how Blaise Pascal came 
under these influences. "Immediately after the ex- 
periments" of 1646, she says, "and when he was not 
yet twenty-four years of age, Providence having 
brought about an occasion which obliged him to read 
books of piety, God enlightened him by this reading 
to such an extent, that he came to understand perfectly 
that the Christian religion obliges us to live only for 
God, and to have no other object but Him. And this 
truth appeared to him so evident, so necessary, and so 
useful, that it put an end to all his researches ; so that 
from this time he renounced all other kinds of know- 
ledge in order to apply himself exclusively to the " one 
thing" which Jesus Christ calls 'needful.'" How 
exactly we are to understand this statement we shall 
see in the sequel. 



32 PASCAL 

" He had been preserved," she goes on, " up to this 
time, by a special protection of God, from all the vices 
of youth; and, what is still more strange, in a mind 
of this temper and character, he was never carried 
away to any free thinking in regard to religion, having 
always limited his curiosity to natural things. He 
has told me often that he added this obligation to all 
the others for which he was indebted to my father, 
who, himself having a great respect for religion, had 
inspired his son with the same from his infancy, giving 
him as a maxim, that all which is the object of faith 
could not be the object of reason, and much less could 
be made subject to it. These maxims, which were 
often repeated to him by a father for whom he had 
the highest esteem, and in whom he discerned great 
knowledge, accompanied by a power of reasoning both 
keen and powerful, made so great an impression upon 
his mind that when he heard some discourses delivered 
by freethinkers, he remained entirely unmoved by 
them ; and although he was quite young, he regarded 
them as men who had adopted the false principle, that 
the human reason is above everything, and who knew 
nothing of the nature of faith ; and thus this mind, so 
great, so vast, so filled with the desire for knowledge, 
which sought out with so much care the cause and the 
reason of everything, was at the same time submissive 
as a child in all matters of religion ; and this simplicity 
reigned in him throughout his whole life ; so that after 
he had resolved to prosecute no other studies than that 
of religion, he never applied himself to curious questions 
of theology, but put forth the whole strength of his 
mind in attaining the knowledge and the practice of 
the perfection of Christian morality, to which he 



SPIRITUAL LIFE 33 

consecrated all the talents that God had given to him, 
having done nothing else during the whole remainder 
of his life than meditate on the law of God day and 
night." 

Pascal and the other members of the family now 
came under Jansenist influence, studying the books 
recommended to them by their physicians, such as the 
Reformation of the Inner Man, by Jansenius, the tract 
on Frequent Communion, by Arnauld, and the Spiritual 
Letters, and other works of St. Cyran. Of the teach- 
ings of this school we shall have much to say hereafter. 
At present it may suffice to remark that they were 
almost Calvinistic, and, as we must judge, essentially 
Augustinian, and therefore bitterly opposed by the 
Semi-Pelagianism which was the prevailing form of 
doctrine in the Gallican Church of the period. One 
can easily understand how a character like that of 
Pascal, earnest, intense, sad, should be attracted by 
such teaching. His was a nature which found it 
difficult to do things by halves, to whom the attempt 
to serve God and Mammon at once was an impossibility ; 
and thus he formed the purpose of henceforth living 
for God alone, and of making His will the supreme law 
of his life. In particular, he resolved, as his sister has 
told us, to put an end to those curious inquiries to 
which he had hitherto devoted himself, and undertook 
the serious study no longer of science, but of religion. 

The whole of the Pascal family came under the 
Jansenist influence ; but Blaise, who had now undergone 
what is known as his " first conversion," was specially 
concerned about the conversion of his younger sister 
Jacqueline, who was now twenty years of age, and 
was sought in marriage by a counsellor in the parlia- 
3 



34 PASCAL 

ment of Rouen. Her brother pointed out to her that 
such a life as then opened before her would be a robbing 
of God of a part of that which belonged to Him ; and 
by degrees he brought her to the same opinion. 
Separating herself from all earthly interests, she gave 
herself up to the service of God alone, exhibiting to 
her brother much gratitude for his guidance, and 
henceforth regarding herself as his daughter. 

This was followed by the conversion of their father, 
who then entered upon the same manner of life, and 
persevered in it until the time of his death in September 
1651. Finally, in this same year, 1646, M. and Madame 
Perier, having come to Rouen, and finding the other 
members of the family thus wholly consecrated to the 
service of God, resolved to join them ; and they, too, 
were in like manner converted, Madame Perier being 
twenty-six years of age. 

An incident occurred about this time with respect 
to which widely different opinions have been enter- 
tained. It was an illustration of the zeal of a new 
convert in behalf of the purity of the faith, and it 
may be well to tell the story in the words of Madame 
Perier. Although, she says, her brother had not made 
a special study of theology, " he was not ignorant of 
the decisions of the Church against the heresies which 
have been invented by human subtlety, and his live- 
liest opposition was directed against these tendencies ; 
and God gave him, at this time, an opportunity of 
showing the zeal which he had for religion. 

" He was then at Rouen, where my father was em- 
ployed in the service of the king ; and there was there 
also, at the same time, a man x who taught a new 

1 His name was Jacques Forton, called Brother St. Ange. 



SPIRITUAL LIFE 35 

philosophy which attracted all the curious. My 
brother having been pressed to be present by two 
young men who were friends of his, went with them ; 
but they were much surprised, in the interview which 
they had with this man, to find that, in setting forth 
to them the principles of his philosophy, he drew from 
them consequences, on points of faith, which were 
contrary to the decisions of the Church. He professed 
to prove by his arguments that the body of Jesus Christ 
was not formed of the blood of the Holy Virgin, but 
of another matter created on purpose, and several other 
similar things. They opposed these opinions, but he re- 
mained firm in his conviction. Having then considered 
with themselves the danger of allowing the liberty of 
instructing youth to a man who had such erroneous 
sentiments, they resolved first to warn him, and then 
to denounce him, if he resisted the advice which they 
gave him. So it turned out, for he despised their 
advice, in consequence of which they thought it their 
duty to denounce him to M. du Bellay, who then dis- 
charged episcopal functions in the diocese of Rouen by 
commission from the archbishop. 1 M. du Bellay sent 
for the man, and, having interrogated him, was deceived 
by an equivocal confession of faith which he wrote 
to him and signed with his hand, the bishop taking 
little account of a warning given by three young men. 
" As soon, however, as they saw this confession of 
faith, they recognised its defects, so that they felt 

1 " The Archbishop of Rouen mentioned here was Francois de Harlay, 
second of that name, uncle of the celebrated Archbishop of Paris. M. 
du Bellay is M. de Belley, i.e. M. the bishop of Belley. Hew as the 
celebrated Camus, the disciple and friend of St. Francois de Sales. He 
had only the title of bishop, having resigned his bishopric in 1629. 
He received in exchange the abbey of Aulnay." — Havet. 



36 PASCAL 

constrained to have recourse to the Archbishop of 
Rouen, at Gaillon, who, after having examined the 
whole affair, found it so important that he wrote a 
patent to his council, and gave an express order to 
M. du Bellay to require the man to retract on all the 
points in regard to which he was accused, and to 
receive nothing from him except by communication 
from those who had denounced him. The thing was 
carried through in this manner. Forton appeared 
before the council of the archbishop and renounced all 
his opinions ; and it may be said that this was done 
sincerely, for he never showed any anger against those 
who had taken part in the affair, which leads to the 
belief that he was himself deceived by false conclusions 
which he drew from his false principles. It was quite 
certain that there was no intention on the part of the 
complainants to injure him, but only to undeceive him, 
and to prevent him from leading astray young persons 
who were incapable of distinguishing truth from false- 
hood in questions of such subtlety. Thus the affair 
terminated pleasantly." 

Various harsh criticisms have been directed against 
the conduct of Pascal on this occasion ; but perhaps it 
has been too easily forgotten that religious toleration 
was not a generally accepted doctrine in the time 
of Pascal. Our own English Puritans were scandalised 
by the restriction placed upon the " truths " which they 
held ; but they were not quite clear on the point that 
men should be permitted to propagate " error." There 
can, at least, be no question as to the consistency of 
Pascal's conduct in this matter. 

The faith and patience of Pascal were sorely tried 
about this time by the loss of his health, which was 



SPIRITUAL LIFE 37 

never vigorous; and his sister speaks with great ad- 
miration of his endurance of his sufferings. He 
was afflicted, she says, " with continual maladies which 
went on increasing. But as now he knew no other 
science than that of perfection, he found a great differ- 
ence between this and those which had previously 
occupied his mind; for instead of his indispositions 
retarding his progress, those very indispositions tended 
to increase his perfection through the admirable 
patience with which he endured them." And then 
she proceeds to give one example in illustration. 

" Among other indispositions," she says, " he suffered 
from being unable to swallow any liquid which was 
not warm ; and even so only drop by drop. But as, 
besides this, he had an intolerable pain in the head, 
and an excessive internal heat, and many other 
troubles, the physicians ordered him to purge himself 
once every two days for three months ; so that it was 
necessary to take all these medicines, and besides to 
have them warmed and to swallow them drop by drop, 
which was a genuine punishment, and most distressing 
to all who were near him, without any complaint 
coming from him." 

It was probably about this time that he wrote his 
" Prayer to ask of God the right use of sickness," of 
which we may here present the leading thoughts. 
Granting, he says, that sickness is an evil, and some- 
times incurable, the problem is to render it endurable, 
and even, if possible, to turn it to good by the use that 
we make of it. Of this problem the Christian doctrine 
furnishes the solution. 

In the first place, it explains the existence of the 
malady. It teaches that man has sinned, and that 



38 PASCAL 

now, in his natural estate, he is under the sway of his 
fault. Being detached from God so as to turn himself 
towards perishable things, he is henceforth attached 
to these objects. Now, God is at once justice and 
mercy. Just, He imposes upon man suffering as ex- 
piation; merciful, He offers it to him as a means of 
detaching himself from earthly things and of directing 
himself towards his true end. 

But how should suffering have this double effect? 
Will it suffice that I should undergo it with resigna- 
tion in the manner of the heathen ? If in my manner 
of using it there is nothing but what I can give my- 
self by myself, my suffering is worth no more than I 
am, and cannot save me. Shall I ask, then, of God to 
set me free from sickness and grief ? That would be to 
claim, from the time of the trial, the recompense of the 
elect and the saints. It is necessary that I should suffer, 
and that my suffering should be the channel through 
which grace should enter into me to change me. 

Now, since the work of Jesus Christ, who has 
suffered all the pains which we have merited, suffering 
is a feature of resemblance, a feature of union between 
man and God. Moreover, it is the only one in the 
present life. Thanks, then, to suffering, God may 
visit the human soul. It suffices that, in His love, 
He unite the suffering of the sinner with that of the 
Redeemer. Assumed by Jesus Christ, the soul will 
acquire this purifying and renovating virtue which 
the divine action alone can confer upon it. 

Thus, the Christian doctrine, with the explanation 
of evil, brings the remedy of it. It not only renders 
the malady acceptable ; it makes it the chief instru- 
ment in our conversion and our sanctification. 



SPIRITUAL LIFE 39 

In the autumn of 1647 Pascal, finding himself a 
little better, resolved to come to Paris, where we find 
him settled with his younger sister in the month of 
September. It was at this time that he had his 
two interviews with Descartes, who gave him good 
advice with respect to the care of his health, which 
apparently was not followed. 

Pascal's father returned to Paris in the month of 
May 1648 ; but before that time his son and daughter 
had come under the influence of M. Singlin, an earnest 
and powerful preacher who was confessor to the nuns 
and Solitaries of Port Royal of Paris. It was not long 
before Jacqueline conceived the desire to enter the 
monastery, and in this she was sustained by her brother. 
She was welcomed by the abbess, the Mere Angelique, 
and by her sister the Mere Agnes ; and placed herself 
under the direction of M. Singlin. By the time of her 
father's arrival in Paris her resolution was taken, and 
her brother undertook to open the matter to her father. 
He, indeed, rejoiced to see his daughter's devotion, but 
shrank from the sacrifice of giving her up. He was 
quite willing that she should choose her own way of 
living under his roof, and in this respect he offered her 
complete liberty ; but he could not at once bring 
himself to consent to her taking the veil. 

It was about this time that Pascal felt himself 
drawn to the Port Royalists particularly by the study 
of their works and those of their opponents ; and it 
would appear that some of the lines of thought which 
he afterwards pursued with such force and brilliancy, 
were suggested to him during his inquiries into the 
teaching of Port Royal. It is said, indeed, that one 
day, when in conversation with M. Rebours, confessor 



40 PASCAL 

of Port Royal, he told him that he thought it possible 
to demonstrate by the mere principles of common sense 
many of the things by which the freethinkers professed 
to be scandalised ; and he expressed the opinion that 
reasoning, if well conducted, would lead to the admission 
of the teachings of religion, although it was the duty 
of the Christian to receive them without the aid of 
reasoning. 

It is said that M. Rebours was alarmed at this ; and 
remembering Pascal's studies in geometry, he remarked 
that it was to be feared that such an opinion proceeded 
from a principle of vanity and from confidence in his 
powers of reasoning. On this Pascal declared that, in 
examining himself, he found nothing of the kind which 
alarmed M. Rebours. That, he allowed, would be a 
grave error, but he adhered to his opinion. 

We have referred to the remarks of Madame Perier, 
in which she seems to say that her brother abandoned 
his scientific studies after his conversion. From what 
has been said in the previous chapter, this is clearly 
a mistake. Madame Perier would seem to place all 
his scientific work before his conversion ; but this is 
evidently wrong. Pascal may have conducted these 
inquiries in a different spirit in his later days; but 
there is no sufficient reason for believing that he gave 
them up. 

In the month of May 1649 the Pascal family 
removed to Auvergne. Blaise had been advised by his 
physicians to abstain from all intellectual exertion, and 
to take every opportunity for relaxation and enter- 
tainment. Their father was also desirous of reviving 
in Jacqueline a taste for society, in the hope that she 
might abandon her resolution of entering the convent ; 



SPIRITUAL LIFE 41 

and this was the more likely, as they had many friends 
and relatives in that region. It would appear that 
the changed circumstances produced no difference in 
Jacqueline ; but it was otherwise with Blaise, although 
it is said that he saw the danger of exposing himself 
to the temptations of the world. For now that he was 
cut off from his scientific researches he " set himself 
on the world," but without any approach to what might 
be called irregularity of life. 

On their return to Paris in 1649, or, according to 
others, in 1650, Pascal seems to have contracted an 
intimacy with various persons of a character more 
secular than his own. Chief among these was the 
young Duke of Roannez, who was younger than 
Pascal, being only about twenty years of age. In his 
love of science and in other respects he had a deep 
sympathy with Pascal, and cultivated earnestly his 
society. Another friend was the Chevalier de Mere, 
a man of ability and distinction ; and a third was a M. 
Miton of a character akin to what we should now call 
a pessimist. Besides these, among his acquaintances 
were des Barreaux, an irreligious voluptuary whom 
sickness drove to religion, the Duchesse d'Aiguillon 
who had made Jacqueline Pascal known to Richelieu, 
and the Marquise de Sable, who was the centre of a 
brilliant salon in Paris. A reference should perhaps 
be made, in this connection, to a young lady with 
whom Pascal is said to have been very intimate, " who 
was the Sappho of the country," and greatly admired. 
According to some, this incident occurred during his 
residence in Auvergne in 1649 ; according to others at 
a later period, after his father's death. It seems that 
a good deal too much has been made of this incident. 



42 PASCAL 

That Pascal should enjoy the society of a highly 
intellectual and cultivated woman is surely not wonder- 
ful ; and if for a moment he entertained any warmer 
sentiments, this will seem unworthy of him only to 
those who hold the somewhat harsh theories of the 
Jansenists. 

Whilst Pascal was forming these new relations, an 
event occurred which was to have a deep influence on 
the family. This was the death of his father on 24th 
September 1651. Of the impression produced upon 
Pascal we gain some knowledge from a letter written 
to M. and Madame Perier in the following month. We 
seek, he says, for consolation, and, if possible, for the 
turning of evil into good. This was a favourite 
thought with Pascal. But whence, he asks, can this 
consolation come, to be real and solid, but from the 
truth ? Our business then, knowing what death is, is 
to make a practical use of it, in our judgments and in our 
conduct, in conformity with this knowledge. According 
to the heathen, death is a natural thing. If that were 
so, it would necessarily be an evil ; for it would then 
be in reality that which it is in appearance, corruption 
and annihilation ; and no place would be left for hope. 
But, according to the truth which we are taught by 
the Holy Spirit, death is an expiation and a means of 
delivering us from concupiscence. It has this signifi- 
cance in Jesus Christ ; and it has the same in us, if we 
die with Jesus Christ. 

Still there remains the instinctive dread of death, 
so difficult to subdue. But we shall become masters of 
death, if we understand its origin. According to the 
true Christian doctrine, our present love of life is a 
corruption of that inclination for eternal life which 



SPIRITUAL LIFE 43 

God had planted in us. God having withdrawn Him- 
self from our soul as a consequence of sin, the infinite 
void which He left there has been filled by our Self 
and by the things of the present life. Henceforth our 
love, not knowing where to lay hold, has attached 
itself to these objects. The dread of death which we 
experience comes from this irregular love, and thus it 
is, fundamentally, the primitive dread of the death of 
the soul, turned away from its true end and falsely 
applied to the death of the body. There can then be 
no question of abolishing it, that which, besides, would 
be impossible, but only of restoring it to its true form. 
In proportion as we dread spiritual death, the death of 
the body will inspire us with less of terror. 

Do we mean, he goes on, that we shall come to 
regard without pain the death of one who is dear to 
us ? We cannot, and we ought not. For the action of 
grace, whereby alone we detach ourselves from our 
natural impressions, necessarily clashes with the oppos- 
ing effort of our concupiscence ; and it is by the pain 
produced by the latter that we measure the progress 
of the former. Let us then weep for our father ; that 
is right. Let us be consoled ; that is equally right ; 
and let the consolation of grace prevail over the senti- 
ments of nature. 

" I have learnt from a holy man," says Pascal, " that 
one of the most solid and useful acts of charity towards 
the dead is to do the thing that they would ask us to 
do if they were still in the world, and to practise the 
holy counsels which they would have given us, and 
to put ourselves for them in the condition in which 
they now wish us. By such practice we do, in 
some sort, make them to live again in us, since it 



44 PASCAL 

is their counsels which are still living and acting 
in us." 

Notwithstanding these sentiments, which undoubt- 
edly were quite sincere, doubts have been raised as to 
the reality, or perhaps the depth, of Pascal's spiritual 
life at this time. It is, in fact, not quite easy for 
ourselves to assume the point of view of Pascal and his 
sister. With them monastic life was the "religious" 
life; whilst we might regard the acceptance of the 
ordinary Christian life in the world as, in some cases, 
a really higher and more devoted life than that of 
the cloister. However this may be, there was at this 
time a certain separation of Pascal and his sister. He 
seemed to be living more and more in the world, 
among worldly men, and for the world ; whilst she 
was entirely separated, from the time of her conversion 
at Rouen, from her former manner of life. 

Permitted by her father to order her life as she 
pleased, so long as she remained in his family, she 
adopted a rule hardly different from that of the nun, 
wearing a peculiar dress, keeping fasts and vigils, 
giving much time to spiritual reading and meditation, 
and employing herself in manifold acts of charity and 
beneficence. Her brother, on the contrary, lived less 
and less the life of a recluse, became intimate with free 
thinkers and free livers, and, even according to his own 
judgment, was living almost without God in the world. 

It was therefore not unnatural that he should 
oppose his sister's entrance to the convent, and do 
his utmost to put off as long as possible her assumption 
of the veil. On her part there seems to have been no 
change and no hesitation. After her father's death 
(September 1651) she announced her determination. 



SPIRITUAL LIFE 45 

Her brother implored her to postpone her "entrance 
into religion " at least for a year or six months. But 
she thought such delay useless, and prepared to 
separate from her friends. Her sister gives a very 
touching account of her last moments with them. 
" She rose, dressed, and went away, doing this, as every- 
thing else, with a tranquillity and equanimity incon- 
ceivable. We said no adieu for fear of breaking down. 
I only turned aside when I saw her ready to go. In 
this manner she quitted the world on the 4th of Janu- 
ary 1652, being then twenty-six years and three 
months old." 

After a year of novitiate, she prepared to make her 
profession, and informed her brother and sister of her 
intention of giving to Port Royal that part of the 
family inheritance which fell to her. This purpose 
did not give satisfaction to the family, who united in a 
protest against her alienating to strangers what they 
regarded as rightly belonging to themselves. But 
Jacqueline was a thorough Pascal, affectionate and 
tender as a sister, but firm as a rock in her religious 
principles. She thought their way of looking at the 
matter was too secular, and deeply resented the 
assumption that she was to be received into the 
Society without a dower. But the authorities were 
stern as the Pascals. The Mere Agnes treated Jacque- 
line's scruples almost with contempt. What did it 
matter to them whether she brought money with her 
or not ? Besides, as she remarked in her lofty manner, 
they ought not to expect from a worldly man a move- 
ment of true charity. 

Such arguments may have satisfied her reason, and 
at last she resolved that there should be no impediment 



46 PASCAL 

to her religious profession; but she was unable to 
conceal her sorrow and chagrin when her brother came 
to visit her. This, she says, was so unlike her usual 
manner that he perceived something to be wrong, and 
speedily guessed the cause ; and was so touched by her 
distress that "he resolved to put the whole affair in 
order," offering himself to convey a donation to Port 
Royal. And then there arose difficulties on the part 
of the Mothers. They could not accept gifts offered 
unwillingly. One ought to give, they said, by the 
Spirit of God ; if not, they would prefer to have 
nothing. " We have learnt," said the Mere Angelique, 
"from M. de St. Cyran to receive nothing for the 
House of God which does not come from God. All 
that is done from any other motive than charity is 
not a fruit of the Spirit of God, and consequently we 
ought not to receive it." 

The matter was, however, settled satisfactorily by an 
assurance on the part of Pascal that he gave in the 
spirit in which they wished to receive, regretting that 
he could not give more. The profession took place 
5th June 1653 ; and Pascal, now more left to himself, 
seems to have continued the manner of life into which 
he had fallen, partly from his inability to carry on his 
studies. There is no hint of any irregularity in his life, 
but his associations and his employments seem to have 
been of a secular character. It is even said that he 
united mathematical speculations with play. As these 
statements rest principally upon the testimony of 
Jacqueline, we must not, in estimating their value, 
forget the point of view from which her judgments are 
formed. It is tolerably clear that Pascal had not kept 
up the ardour of his " first conversion," and that he 



SPIRITUAL LIFE 47 

had not attained to the higher level of his later 
spiritual experience. It is quite possible, however, 
that his immediate friends and relatives may have 
judged too unfavourably of his actual religious con- 
dition. The worst probably that could be said of him 
was that his associates were not of a high quality. At 
the same time there is evidence that Pascal saw the 
true character of some of these men, and perhaps 
learnt something from them which he afterwards 
turned to good account, whilst he never really became 
identified with them. As has been well said, "if his 
feet touched for a moment the dirt of this dissolute 
society, his divine wings remained unsoiled." 

One instance of his intercourse with men of the 
world may be referred to. In the year 1652 he made 
a journey in Poitou along with the Due de Roannez 
and M. Mere, who thought of him as a mere mathe- 
matician who had little acquaintance with the ways of 
the world and the tastes of men of rank. These men 
were much amused at the manner in which Pascal 
introduced arguments from geometry into their ordi- 
nary conversation; and it is said that by degrees 
Pascal came to see that such conversation was unsuited 
to his companions. 

It would, however, appear that Pascal stimulated 
thought on the part of some of these men. For 
example, M. Mere, writing to Pascal, reminded him 
that his mathematical demonstrations, in which he had 
so much confidence, are merely ideal, applicable to 
what he calls fictions, and quite unable to make us 
understand real things ; that, when a man has a lively 
mind and keen eyes, he remarks at once in objects a 
quantity of things that a geometrician will never see ; 



48 PASCAL 

that there are thus two methods, demonstrations and 
natural sentiment, the latter very superior to the 
former; and that there are two worlds, the material, 
which is prescribed to the senses and to calculation, 
and another invisible, and, in truth, infinite, in which 
is found the ideal and the true originals of all that we 
seek to know. One can trace the effect of remarks 
like these in the subsequent meditations of Pascal. 

Under these various influences Pascal entered upon 
studies of a less abstract character, his favourite authors 
being Epictetus and Montaigne, whilst the writings of 
Descartes assumed for him a new significance, and led 
him to the contemplation of the greatness of human 
thought and of the spirit of man. It must have been 
about this time that he composed his striking Discourse 
on the Passions 1 of Love, which remained unknown 
until it was discovered by Victor Cousin the philosopher. 

There is no doubt that this fragment is from the 
hand of Pascal, external and internal evidence being 
alike conclusive on the subject. The very beginning 
has the note of the great writer: "Man is born to 
think; he is never for a moment without doing so. 
But mere thoughts, which would render him happy if 
he could always sustain them, fatigue and depress him. 
To such a life he could not accommodate himself, he 
has need of movement and action ; that is to say, he 
needs to be agitated by the passions of which he feels 
deep and living sources in his heart. The passions 
which are most proper to man, and which contain 
many others, are love and ambition; they have but 

1 "The passions, and not the passion. The passions, that is, the 
accidents, the symptoms, t& ir&dij. It is a kind of moral pathology of 
love." — Havet. 



SPIRITUAL LIFE 49 

little connection, yet they are frequently united ; but 
they mutually weaken, not to say ruin, each other. 

" However spacious the mind may be, it is capable 
of only one great passion; and so, when love and 
ambition meet, they are only half as great as they 
would be if only one were there. Age determines 
neither the beginning nor the end of these two pas- 
sions ; they are born with our earliest years, and they 
often subsist to the grave. . . . 

" How happy is a life when it begins with love and 
ends with ambition. If I had to choose my life, I 
should take that. . . . We are born with a character 
of love in our hearts, which develops itself in propor- 
tion as the mind perfects itself, and which carries us 
on to love that which seems to us beautiful without 
anyone having told us what it is. Who doubts after 
that if we are in the world for any other reason than 
to love ? . . . A man does not like to remain by him- 
self. Yet he loves. He must therefore seek elsewhere 
for an object of love. He can find it only in beauty ; 
but as he is himself the most beautiful creature that 
God has ever formed, he must find in himself the 
pattern of that beauty which he seeks without him. . . . 
For this reason the beauty which can satisfy a man 
consists not only in correspondence, but also in resem- 
blance ; it is restrained and confirmed in the difference 
of sex. . . . 

" Beauty is shared in a thousand different ways. 
The most suitable embodiment of beauty is a woman. 
When she has intelligence, she imparts to it marvellous 
life and elevation. If a woman wishes to please, and 
possesses the advantages of beauty, or, at least, a part 
of them, she will succeed. . . , 
4 



50 PASCAL 

" Love is of no age ; it is always being born. The 
poets have told us so. That is why they represent 
love as a child. . . . Man alone is something imperfect. 
In order to be happy he must find another. This 
union he usually seeks in equality of condition, because 
in this he finds greater liberty and facility for the 
manifestations of affection. Yet sometimes one rises 
above himself and love burns high, although he does 
not dare to make it known to her who has caused it. 
When one loves a lady who is not of one's own rank, 
ambition may accompany the beginning of love ; but in 
a short time love becomes the master. He is a tyrant 
who allows of no rival. He wills to be alone ; and all 
other passions must yield to him and obey him. . . . 

" The pleasure of loving without daring to tell it has 
its pains, but it has also its sweetnesses. With what 
transport do we shape all our actions in order to please 
one for whom we have a boundless esteem ! . . . The 
first effect of love is to inspire a great respect. We 
venerate that which we love ; and that is quite right. 
Nothing in the world can be thought so great. ... In 
love, silence is more powerful than language. It is 
good to be silent. In this there is an eloquence which 
penetrates more deeply than language. . . . The attach- 
ment to that which we love gives birth to qualities 
which we did not previously possess. One becomes 
magnificent without having been so before. Even a 
miser who loves becomes liberal, and he does not re- 
member having ever been of a different disposition. 
We understand the reason of this when we consider 
that there are passions which shut up the soul and 
render it torpid, while there are others that enlarge it 
and make it expand. . . . 



SPIRITUAL LIFE 51 

"At a distance from that which we love we form 
resolutions to do or to say many things ; but when we 
come near, we become irresolute. How is this ? The 
reason is simple. At a distance the reason is not so 
much disturbed, but it is strangely so in the presence 
of the object of our affection. Now, for resolution we 
need firmness, and this is ruined by any disturbance." 

This fragment, obviously incomplete in parts, un- 
doubtedly belongs to the year 1652 or 1653, when 
Pascal was twenty-nine or thirty years of age. Cer- 
tain inferences have been drawn from the contents of 
this " discourse." It is clear, we are told by some, that 
a lady of high rank had touched the heart of Pascal ; 
and this does not appear improbable. Assuredly there 
are sentences here which seem to betray more than a 
merely speculative acquaintance with the passion of 
which he speaks ; and there are two or three sentences 
which favour the theory to which we have just referred. 
Some have gone so far as to identify the object of 
Pascal's affection with the sister of his friend, the Due 
de Roannez, then a girl of scarcely twenty years of 
age, whilst others have regarded such a notion as most 
improbable. The subject has been warmly discussed, 
as though the character of Pascal were involved in the 
conclusion. It is not possible, in the present state of 
our information, to decide either way, and it is of no 
great importance to do so. 

We have already seen that the period following upon 
the time just described was that of his principal dis- 
coveries in mathematics. But it is also clear that his 
spiritual condition was not satisfactory to his sister, 
nor even to himself ; and he began to ask whether he 
might not obtain a larger degree of satisfaction from 



52 PASCAL 

higher things. The longer he thought on the things 
of the world, the less satisfaction he found in them. 
Moreover, he saw in his sister's life at Port Royal an 
example of steadfast faith and constancy of purpose 
which contrasted strongly with his own unsettled and 
unsatisfactory state of mind. In the words of Madame 
Perier, " God was calling him to a great perfection," and 
" He made use of my sister for this purpose as He had 
formerly made use of my brother when He chose to 
withdraw my sister from the engagements which she 
had formed in the world. She was then in religion 
[a nun], and she led a life so holy that she edified the 
whole house ; and being in this state, she was pained 
to see that he to whom, under God, she was indebted 
for the graces which she enjoyed, was not himself in 
possession of these graces ; and as my brother often saw 
her, she often spoke to him on the subject ; and finally 
did so with so much power and sweetness that she 
persuaded him, as he had first persuaded her, absolutely 
to leave the world; so that he resolved entirely to 
abandon all secular intercourse and to cut off all the 
superfluities of life which might interfere with the 
work of his salvation, since he believed that salvation 
was superior to all other things. He was then thirty 
years of age, and he was always in poor health ; and 
it was from this time that he embraced the manner of 
life in which he persisted until his death." It is un- 
necessary here to draw attention to the monastic point 
of view of the writer, as it meets us continually in 
Pascal's history. 

We learn from a letter of Jacqueline Pascal to her 
sister, written 25th January 1655, that her brother had 
paid her a visit in the previous month of September, 



SPIRITUAL LIFE 53 

and had made known to her the state of his mind; 
confessing that in the midst of his numerous occupations 
and among all the things that might contribute to 
make him love the world, he felt such an aversion for 
all those objects to which his heart was attached, and 
experienced such torments of conscience, that he had 
the strongest desire to leave it all. And assuredly, he 
said, he had such a longing for this that he would 
long ago have carried this resolution into effect if God 
had granted him the same grace as hitherto, and given 
him the same movements towards Himself. But God 
seemed to have abandoned him to his weakness. 

Such a confession filled his sister with surprise and 
delight, which she communicated to her sister Mme. 
Perier, entreating her to help, by her prayers, that God 
might continue the work which He had manifestly 
begun. At the same time she commended him to the 
sympathy and prayers of Port Royal. The work was 
not brought to completion all at once. Pascal was 
convinced of the necessity of a change which should 
lead to undoubting faith. But his heart for a time 
refused to obey his reason. He strove passionately to 
create a new habit of mind, a new direction of will, not 
fully sensible of his dependence upon divine grace for 
the power that would change the heart. By degrees 
he learnt that reason and practice by themselves were 
inadequate. By degrees he learnt not only to despise 
the world, but to love God ; but the victory for a time 
was incomplete. 

Various causes are assigned as having assisted to 
bring about a decision. A sermon by M. Singlin in 
November 1654 is said to have produced a great effect 
upon him. The preacher insisted upon the necessity 



54 PASCAL 

of entire surrender to God, and pointed out that the 
power to effect such a change must come from God. 
Shortly after this Pascal is said to have fallen into a 
kind of trance, in which he had a very vivid impression 
of the presence of God, and seemed to be illuminated by 
a supernatural fire. 

Another incident is on record as having formed an 
important turning-point in his spiritual history — an 
accident by which his life was gravely endangered. 
It is assigned to the month of October 1654, shortly 
after his interview with his sister Jacqueline. One 
day, it is said, he was driving to the bridge of Neuilly 
in a carriage and four, when the two leading horses 
became restive, and turning off the road sprang into 
the Seine. Happily the traces broke, so that the 
carriage was not dragged after them. In his weak 
state of health Pascal was so powerfully affected by 
the accident that he fainted away, and was with 
difficulty restored, whilst the sense of danger remained 
with him for long afterwards. 

There is no necessary contradiction between these 
various accounts. Pascal's visit to his sister in 
September may certainly be reckoned as a turning- 
point in his history ; and as it was at that time that 
he revealed to her his state of mind, it was quite 
natural that she should dwell upon it and say nothing 
of those other incidents of the sermon by M. Singlin, 
and the accident to the carriage; but we may well 
believe that these things, happening at the time when 
Pascal was under deep religious impressions, contributed 
to his final decision. 

When at last he took the decisive step, — known as 
his second or final conversion, — by his sister's advice he 



SPIRITUAL LIFE 55 

placed himself under the direction of M. de Saci of 
Port Royal. His sister, when he hesitated on this 
point, said : " I saw clearly that this was only a remnant 
of independence hidden in the depth of his heart, 
which armed itself with every weapon to ward off a 
submission which yet in his state of feeling must be 
perfect." 

Pascal first left Paris because the Due de Roannez 
was about to return there, and he did not wish to fall 
again under his influence. Unable to accommodate 
himself in a country house, he got a chamber or cell 
among the Solitaries of Port Royal which met all his 
needs. Speaking of his life there in a letter to 
Madame Perier, Jacqueline says : " He joins in every 
office of the Church from Prime to Compline without 
experiencing the least inconvenience in rising at five 
o'clock in the morning; and, as if it was the will of 
God that he should join fasting to watching, in defiance 
of all the medical prescriptions which had forbidden 
him both, he found that supper disagreed with him, and 
was about to give it up." 

In this connection it may be of interest to give a 
paper drawn up by Pascal, probably a memorial of 
his conversion, and afterwards used for purposes of 
self-examination and meditation. 



Year of Grace 1654. 

Monday, November 23, Day of St. Clement, Pope and Martyr, 

and of others in the martyrology. 

Eve of St. Chrysogonus, martyr, and others. 

From about half -past ten o'clock in the evening, to about 

half -past twelve. 



56 PASCAL 

Fire. 

God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, 

not of Philosophers and Scholars. 

Certitude. Certitude. Sentiment. Joy. Peace. 

God of Jesus Christ, 

My God and your God. 

Thy God will be my God. 

Forgetfulness of the world and of all save God. 

He is found only by the ways taught in the Gospel. 

Greatness of the human soul. 

Righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee ; 

but I have known Thee. 

Joy, Joy, Joy, tears of joy. 

I separated myself from Him. 

They have forsaken Me the fountain of living water, 

My God, wilt Thou forsake me 1 

May I not be separated from Him eternally. 

This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only 

true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. 

Jesus Christ. 

Jesus Christ. 

I separated myself from Him ; I fled from Him, renounced, 

crucified. 

He is retained only by the ways taught in the Gospel, 

Renunciation complete and sweet, etc. 



CHAPTER IV 

Port Royal 

The abbey of Port Royal was a convent for women 
of the Cistercian Order, situated near Chevreuse, about 
eight miles south-west from Versailles and eighteen 
miles from Paris. It occupied a marshy site in the 
valley of the Yvette, near Marly. It was one of the 
most ancient houses of the Order, having been founded 
at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Its name 
was derived from that of the district, " Porrois," which 
is said to be a corruption of Porra or Borra, meaning 
a marshy and woody hollow. According to a late 
tradition, it has its name from being founded by Philip 
Augustus; it was, in fact, founded in 1204 by Mathilde 
de Garlande, wife of Matthieu de Montmorenci-Marli, 
during his absence on the fourth crusade. The church 
and monastery were the work of the same architect who 
built Notre Dame of Amiens. Among other privileges, 
this monastery had the right to afford a retreat to 
persons who wished to retire from the world without 
binding themselves by vows. 

It was with Port Royal as with many of the religious 
houses of the Middle Ages. Noted at first for the 
strictness of its rule and the devotion of its inmates, it 
fell into disorder, and became distinguished for its 



58 PASCAL 

irregularities. At the beginning of the seventeenth 
century it numbered twelve nuns "masked and 
gloved " — women of the world, whilst the abbess was 
a little girl eleven years old. This girl was Jacqueline 
Marie Arnauld, afterwards known as La Mere Angeli- 
que, who had been appointed to the office at the age of 
eight. She belonged to a noble family of Provence, 
already mentioned, who had settled in Auvergne; 
and her grandfather, Antoine Arnauld, Seigneur de 
la Mothe, generally known as M. de la Mothe, was 
procureur-general to Catherine de Medicis. He was a 
Huguenot, and nearly perished in the massacre of St. 
Bartholomew. His second son was a man even more 
distinguished than his father for ability and eloquence. 
If the Huguenot principles of the father were a kind 
of prediction of the tendencies of his descendants, no 
less did the son come into collision with the Order of 
which the family were to be the steadfast opponents. 
He was counsel for the University of Paris when it 
was attempted to expel the Jesuits from France under 
suspicion of having plotted against the life of Henry IV. 
This has been called the " original sin " of the Arnaulds, 
and the Jesuits never forgot it. 

Antoine Arnauld married the daughter of Marion the 
avocat-general, and had twenty children; for two of 
whom, through the influence of his father-in-law, he 
found provision in the monastic establishments of the 
Church. Angelique, the second child, became a nun in 
Port Royal when only eight years of age, and Agnes in 
the abbey of St. Cyr, about six miles distant from Port 
Royal, when only six years of age. The youngest of 
the children was Antoine, afterwards known as the 
great Arnauld. The eldest was known as M. d'Andilly. 



PORT ROYAL 59 

The two sisters, while very different, were both women 
of mark. The Mere Agnes shrank from exercising her 
powers as abbess, more ready to feel her responsibility 
than to assert her authority. Angelique, on the con- 
trary, who had been installed as abbess at the age of 
eleven, was ever ready to exercise the powers committed 
to her as head of her community. Yet neither of them 
had any very deep sense of the work which they had 
undertaken. 

It was in 1608, when Angelique was about sixteen 
years of age, that she heard a sermon from a Capuchin 
friar, strangely, a man of loose character, who happened 
to be in the neighbourhood, and preached on the happi- 
ness of the religious life and the sanctity of the rule of 
St. Benedict. By this instrumentality it pleased God 
to touch her heart, and she resolved to reform her 
abbey. She imposed upon herself and led her nuns 
to accept the rule of the community of goods, fasting, 
abstinence, silence, vigils, mortification, in short all 
the austerities of the rule of St. Benedict. But the 
principal point in her reform was the absolute ex- 
clusion of the world from her monastery. 

Acting on this principle, she gave notice that the 
nuns could, in future, see their relatives only in the par- 
lour, and that no visitor could be allowed to enter the 
interior of the monastery. A somewhat painful appli- 
cation of the rule occurred before long. On 23rd Sep- 
tember 1609 her father and mother presented themselves 
at the gate with the view of paying a visit to their 
daughter. The Mere Angelique opened the wicket, 
and asked her parents to come into the parlour, so 
that she might, across the grating, explain to them the 
nature of her resolutions. Then having perceived, 



60 PASCAL 

behind the grating, the changed and sorrowful features 
of her father, she had to listen to a touching remon- 
strance from his lips, which deprived her of all power of 
reply, and so profoundly affected her that she fell faint- 
ing at his feet. This put an end to the controversy. 
From that day, called in the annals of Port Royal " the 
Day of the Wicket " {la journee du guichet), the mem- 
bers of her family were her most constant supporters. 

In a short time the character of the monastery was 
entirely changed. Its reputation extended far and 
wide. When St. Francis de Sales, the gentle and 
devout bishop of Geneva, came to visit the Mere 
Angelique, he was so charmed with the state of the 
monastery that he spoke of it henceforth as his " dear 
delight"; and at the request of the abbess he gave 
those spiritual directions which have guided so many 
souls since that time. 

It was not long before the abbey of Port Royal 
became too small for its inmates. It had been built 
for twelve, and the numbers grew to no fewer than 
eighty. The situation, moreover, being in a swamp 
and undrained, became most unhealthy. A number of 
the members were always ill ; fevers were constant, and 
deaths frequent. Fifteen died in two years. Help 
came from Madame Arnauld, the mother of the Mere 
Angelique, who had been left a widow in 1619, and in 
good circumstances. To provide for the community 
she purchased in 1625 a large house with extensive 
grounds, called the Hotel Clagny, in the Faubourg St. 
Jacques, in Paris. This became known as Port Royal 
de Paris, whilst the old monastery was called Port 
Royal des Champs ; and both were regarded as parts 
of one institution. The Mere Angelique now obtained 



PORT ROYAL 61 

a royal charter, in accordance with which the abbess, 
instead of being appointed for life by the king, was to 
be elected every three years by the nuns. It should 
here be mentioned that the old monastery was occupied 
by a number of men who, under the name of Solitaries, 
became no less famous than the nuns of Port Royal. 

One of the most remarkable and influential of those 
connected with Port Royal was Jean du Vergier de 
Hauranne, abbot of St. Cyran, commonly known as M. 
de St. Cyran, who became director of the nuns of Port 
Royal about ten years after their removal to Paris; 
and his influence on the destinies of Port Royal was so 
great that something may here be said of him. 

Jean Baptiste du Vergier de Hauranne, latterly 
known as M. de St. Cyran, was born at Bayonne in 
1581, four years before Jansenius. He was educated 
at Paris and Louvain, and at the latter university 
he had Jansenius for his fellow - student. Drawn 
together by a similarity of tastes and pursuits, and 
being nearly of the same age, they contracted a friend- 
ship which was consolidated by a common devotion to 
the service of God. 

Jansenius, by his ardour in his studies, had injured 
his health ; and on leaving college he was recommended 
to try the air of France. His friend invited him to 
join him at Bayonne, where they returned to their 
joint studies of theology, of the Scriptures, of the 
Fathers, and especially of St. Augustine. This Father, 
they would have confessed, was more to them than all 
the Fathers ; their adversaries maintained that he was 
more to them than the Catholic Church; and even 
that their own interpretation of St. Augustine was 
more. 



62 PASCAL 

When Jansenius was made bishop of Ypres they 
continued their correspondence. They were both men 
of great learning ; but their learning was subordinated 
to their study of the Scriptures. Both obtained the 
greatest influence from the sanctity of their lives, and 
in Paris St. Cyran was sought out alike by the re- 
ligious and by men of the world — among others by the 
great Cardinal Kichelieu. Eight times he was offered 
a bishopric; but he would accept no higher prefer- 
ment than that of abbot of St. Cyran. 

During his residence in Paris he had formed a close 
acquaintance with M. Arnauld d'Andilly, the eldest 
brother of the Mere Angelique, who introduced him to 
his sister. Soon afterwards he became director of 
Port Koyal, and for a time all went well. But the 
Jesuits, who had long regarded Jansenius as their foe, 
on his death, transferred their enmity to St. Cyran. 
Among other offences, it was reported that he had 
taught that a mere abstinence from outward sin from 
a fear of punishment was no certain proof of a real con- 
version. In such a case, he said, there must be a 
sorrow for sin arising from a love of God, and from 
the sense of having offended Him. In theological 
language St. Cyran had declared for the necessity of 
contrition and not merely attrition. . 

Here he touched more than the Jesuits. Richelieu, 
when bishop of Lucon, had drawn up a catechism for 
the use of his diocese in which he maintained the 
doctrine which St. Cyran now assailed. The Cardinal 
was as jealous of his theology as of his political power, 
and was incensed at St. Cyran's teaching the necessity 
of contrition as well as attrition. Moreover, Richelieu 
had hoped to gain the support of the saintly abbot of 



PORT ROYAL 63 

St. Cyran in another matter of doubtful propriety; 
but St. Cyran declined to mix in the matter. About 
this time the Jansenist controversy arose, and Richelieu 
took the opportunity of expelling St. Cyran's friends 
from Port Royal, and shutting up their director in the 
prison of Vincennes, 14th May 1638. 

It was a hard discipline to which St. Cyran had to 
submit. For a time he was deprived of his books, of 
papers, pens, and ink, cut off from all intercourse with 
his friends, and even insufficiently provided with food. 
He bore his imprisonment with the greatest patience 
and resignation. " I complain of nothing," he said. 
" I am willing to remain here a hundred years, and die 
here, if God wills." After a time his books were 
restored, and some of his most valuable works were 
written in his prison. Soon his influence was felt 
within the walls of Vincennes, whilst it was diffused 
among his disciples without. His imprisonment lasted 
five years, until the death of Richelieu, December 1642, 
soon after which event he was released, February 
1643, although he never recovered his health ; and he 
survived his relief from captivity only a few months. 

So much of St. Cyran personally. We now return 
to the abbey of Port Royal. 

It was the great aim of Jansenius to restore the 
teaching of Augustine to a place of authority in the 
Church, in opposition to what he regarded as the 
Semi-Pelagianism of the Jesuits. St. Cyran had just 
parted from Jansenius, with whose principles he was 
in full accord, and M. d'Andilly had lost a spiritual 
guide in the pious bishop of Geneva; so that a firm 
friendship sprang up between them. 

For some time the Mere Angelique and M. de St. 



64 PASCAL 

Cyran were acquainted without attaining to any degree 
of intimacy. But about ten years after the removal of 
the nuns to Paris, M. de St. Cyran was appointed rector 
of an institution in which the Mere Angelique was 
deeply interested. She is said to have recognised in him 
a spirit akin to that of St. Francois de Sales, at the 
same time that she became impressed with a sense of 
his great ability. We might say that we have here 
the introduction of the Jansenist influence which in the 
future was to be dominant in Port Royal. Deeply con- 
scious of the evils by which the Church was afflicted, 
St. Cyran's hope for its purification and recovery lay 
in a purity of teaching and a holiness of life ; and he 
saw in Port Royal a centre from which such a work 
could be carried on. St. Cyran was succeeded, in 1643, 
by M. Singlin, who carried on the work for some time 
and then handed it over to M. de Saci, a nephew of the 
Mere Angelique. 

Another important work of St. Cyran was the estab- 
lishment of a male community in connection with Port 
Royal. It began with some members of the Arnauld 
family who desired to retire from the world and give 
themselves up to the service of God. Under the in- 
fluence of St. Cyran, Antoine le Maitre, a nephew of 
the Mere Angelique, in 1637 resolved to give up his 
profession as an advocate and retire from the world. 
He was joined by a number of young men ; first by his 
younger brothers, Simon de Sericourt and Louis Isaac, 
subsequently known under the name of de Saci. They 
afterwards added to their number Arnauld d'Andilly, 
Antoine Arnauld (the great Arnauld), and Nicole, 
author of the Essays on Morality. They lived to- 
gether at first in Paris ; but, their house proving too 



PORT ROYAL 65 

small, they removed in 1638 to Port Royal des Champs, 
which had been vacated by the nuns. 

If the state of the monastery had been bad before 
the removal of the nuns, it was much worse now. The 
marshes were poisonous and infested with reptiles, 
and part of the buildings had fallen down. But the 
members of the new society speedily wrought a change 
in the aspect of things. Order and health soon pre- 
vailed where before was disorder and disease. The 
society had no special rules or vows. Its members had 
come together to separate themselves from the world, 
to serve God, and to help their fellow-men. They 
had no peculiar dress, except that their garments were 
plain, coarse, and clean. Day and night they met for 
common prayer in the church. 

St. Cyran, although for several years imprisoned in 
Vincennes, yet continued his guidance of the convent 
by correspondence with M. Singlin, although the 
humility and diffidence of the latter made him glad 
to transmit his office to M. de Saci. The administra- 
tion of St. Cyran was so careful that everyone was 
said to be appointed to the office for which he was 
best qualified ; and no one refused the work to which 
he was called, whether that work was intellectual or 
physical. 

Under this management the reputation of Port Royal 
spread abroad in all directions, and men of the highest 
rank requested the "Solitaries" to undertake the 
education of their children. Neighbouring proprietors 
made over to them houses and lands to be turned into 
schoolrooms and playgrounds ; and schools under their 
control were set up in various parts of the country. 
From these schools came forth men of the highest 
5 



66 PASCAL 

eminence in literature. Tillemont was a pupil at the 
school of Chenet, and is said to have outlined his great 
histories there when only nineteen years of age. So 
Racine meditated some of his tragedies as a boy in the 
woods of Port Royal. Pascal, Arnauld, Nicole, de Saci 
are names that would shed lustre upon any society, 
and much of their work was conceived or composed at 
Port Royal. 

One great difference between the schools of Port 
Royal and those of their rivals, the Jesuits, was found 
in the greater simplicity and reasonableness of their 
methods. Everything like ostentation or artifice was 
discouraged. Routine and habit were supplanted by 
principles which contained within them reasons for 
judgment and for conduct, so that the scholars were 
encouraged to think and to judge for themselves. 

We can now understand the nature of the community 
into which Pascal found admission in January 1655. 
It was a lay fraternity alongside of a monastery, a 
place of retreat where men might occupy their time in 
prayer, in meditation, in the cultivation of the fields, 
in the instruction of the young, and in the healing of 
the sick. By this time, however, they had left the 
buildings which they had occupied in the absence of 
the nuns. When these returned to Port Royal des 
Champs in 1648, the Solitaries gave up the renovated 
buildings to their original owners, and retired to a 
farm on a neighbouring hill, known as Les Granges, 
where they were almost as completely separated from 
the nuns as when they had been in Paris. 

It was in Les Granges that Pascal took up his abode 
with the Solitaries, having resolved to cut himself off 
from all the attractions and indulgences of the world. 



PORT ROYAL 67 

He followed all the customs of the society, however 
rigorous. He rose at five o'clock in the morning to take 
part in the services, and, in disregard of all the cautions 
of his physicians, practised fasts and vigils like the 
most healthy of the brethren. To his great delight he 
suffered in no wise from these exercises; and he had 
the greatest satisfaction in the hardness of his fare 
and the simplicity of his surroundings. The wooden 
spoon, the earthen vessel, were to him as gold and 
precious stones. In self-renunciation he found the 
secret of happiness. 

No less great was the satisfaction of the Solitaries 
at such an accession to their ranks. It was of the 
goodness of God that one was added to them so 
famous and so profound. At the same time, Pascal 
regarded himself as not completely belonging to the 
community, and as having a right to absent himself 
when he thought it necessary. So he often withdrew 
for a time and lived in Paris, at his own house or 
elsewhere, under the name of M. de Mons. But 
although he judged it best to preserve his independ- 
ence in this manner, he took the greatest interest in 
all their work — in their studies and in their schools, 
and he took a special interest in the conferences 
held with reference to the translation of the New 
Testament. 

It was here that he wrote two of his short treatises, 
which are still preserved. The first of these is a 
fragment On the Conversion of the Sinner, published 
for the first time by Bossut. It is, however, assigned 
by him to a different time. Havet has no doubt that 
it followed upon his " second conversion." In this brief 
tract he traces the return of a soul absorbed in the 



6S PASCAL 

world to God. He begins : " The first thing that God 
inspires to the soul which He deigns truly to touch, 
is an extraordinary knowledge and insight by which 
the soul considers things and itself in a fashion quite 
new." And then he goes on to show how a man who 
has once clearly conceived that God is his end, comes 
from this to will that God shall be also his way and 
the principle of all his actions. 

The other document is entitled Conference of 
Pascal with M. de Saci on Epictetus and Montaigne. 
It is said that the brethren of Port Royal were desirous 
of knowing the thoughts of Pascal on some points of 
philosophy, and M. de Saci one day questioned him 
on the subject. The report of the conference was 
made by M. Fontaine, but it is believed that Pascal 
had prepared for the conference, perhaps by making 
notes of what he intended to say. It would appear, 
then, that while the substance of the report represents 
the statements of Pascal, we cannot regard it as an exact 
report of what he said ; although we may consider it 
as a reproduction of Pascal's thought, and largely of 
his words. This conference is so important not only 
in itself, but in reference to Pascal's subsequent contro- 
versial work, that it demands some attention from us 
here. 

M. Fontaine begins with some preliminary remarks 
which fix the period of the conference. He says : " M. 
Pascal came at this time to stay at Port Royal des 
Champs. I need not stop to tell who this man was 
whom not only all France but all Europe has admired. 
His mind always lively, always active, was of an 
extent, of an elevation, of a certainty, and of a pre- 
cision beyond what one could believe." M. de Saci, 



PORT ROYAL 69 

\ 

he says, was accustomed to speak to people on subjects 
in which they were interested, and therefore he spoke 
to Pascal on the subject of philosophy. "M. Pascal 
said that the two books which he had most frequently 
read were Epictetus and Montaigne, and he pronounced 
a great eulogium on these two minds. M. de Saci, who 
had always thought he ought to pay little regard to 
these authors, besought M. Pascal to give a thorough 
explanation of his views on the subject." 

Pascal declares that he sees in these two writers 
the chief representatives of the two essential forms of 
philosophy. Epictetus and Montaigne, he says, are 
each good on one side and bad on the other. Epictetus 
has seen clearly the duty of man; he has seen that 
man ought to regard God as his principal object, and 
ought in all things freely to submit himself to Him. 
But he has wrongly believed that man is able of 
himself to fulfil this duty. As for Montaigne, having 
endeavoured to find out what moral conduct reason 
would dictate without the light of faith, he has seen 
clearly that reason thus left to itself could end 
only in scepticism. But he is wrong in holding that 
man may rely upon what he can do, neglecting what 
he ought to do. He is wrong in approving a man's 
taking for his sole rule the guidance of custom and 
convenience, and holding that a man might go to sleep 
on the pillow of sloth. Thus the one understands 
duty, but concludes falsely from duty to power; the 
other knows man's impotence, but falsely makes of it 
the measure of duty. 

How shall we disengage the truth from these doc- 
trines ? Will it suffice to bring Epictetus and Montaigne 
together, so far as each is right, and thus to complete 



70 PASCAL 

them by each other ? That cannot be. Each of the 
two philosophies is, from the natural point of view, 
an indissoluble whole. Man is one. This unity would 
be broken, if one made to coexist in it the duty of 
the Stoic and the impotence of the Sceptic. Neither 
Epictetus nor Montaigne could conclude otherwise than 
they have done. And thus the two doctrines produce 
a contradiction which is inevitable, since each of them 
is necessary and insoluble, since we are dealing with 
a subject which is indecomposable. It is reason itself 
engaging in a conflict from which it cannot come out. 
Neither affirmation nor negation is allowed here. 
Scepticism is no less excluded than dogmatism. 

The solution which reason could not find is furnished 
to us by faith. Both parties have failed to discover 
that the present condition of man differs from the 
state in which God created him. The Stoic, remarking 
some trace of his primitive greatness, pretends that his 
nature is sound and capable, by itself, of drawing near 
to God. The Sceptic, seeing only our present corrup- 
tion, treats nature as necessarily frail. Now the misery 
is in nature and the greatness is in grace, to which it 
appertains to repair nature ; and the coexistence of 
misery and greatness ceases to be contradictory from 
the moment that these two qualities are regarded as 
residing in two different subjects. How is this co- 
existence possible ? It has its explanation in the 
ineffable union of weakness and power in the unique 
personality of the God-man. It is an image and effect 
of the duality and unity of Jesus Christ. 

M. de Saci testified his admiration at the manner 
in which Pascal brought round his argument in defence 
of his readings, but expressed his fear that people in 



PORT ROYAL 71 

general could not make so good a use of them, could 
not, like Pascal, get medicine out of poison, pearls from 
rubbish, and therefore it would be better for them to 
abstain from them. 

Pascal replies that he finds in Epictetus an invaluable 
means of disturbing the repose of those who seek rest 
in external things, and forcing them to know that they 
are veritable slaves and miserably blind ; that it is 
impossible for them to find anything else than error 
and the grief that they flee from unless they give 
themselves without reserve to God alone. Montaigne, 
on the other hand, is incomparable as a means of con- 
founding the pride of those who, without faith, pique 
themselves on the possession of true righteousness; 
and of disabusing those who are attached to their own 
opinions, and who imagine that they find in the sciences 
immovable truths ; and of convincing the reason of the 
smallness of its light and of its errors, to such an 
extent that it is difficult, when one makes a good use 
of those principles, to be tempted to find stumbling- 
blocks in the mysteries; for the mind is thus so 
humbled that it is far from wishing to question if the 
Incarnation or the mystery of the Eucharist is possible, 
— a matter too frequently agitated by men in general. 

But if Epictetus combats sloth, he leads to pride, 
so that he might be hurtful to those who are not 
persuaded of the corruption of even the most perfect 
righteousness which is not of faith. And Montaigne is 
absolutely pernicious to those who have an inclination 
to impiety and vice. Therefore they ought to be pro- 
portioned with much care, discretion, and regard to the 
condition and morals of those who are advised to read 
them. It seems, however, to me that in joining them 



72 PASCAL 

together, they would not succeed badly, since the one 
opposes the evil of the other ; not that they are capable 
of producing virtue, but only of disturbing vice ; the 
soul finding itself combated by these contrary tendencies, 
the one driving out pride and the other sloth ; not being 
able to rest in either of these vices by its arguments, 
nor yet to avoid them both. 

In short, these two writers, if they cannot produce 
virtue, can at least disturb vice; and, in particular, 
they each of them assail one of the two great forms of 
evil, sloth and pride, which are the obstacles to all 
good in human life. Pascal could not be satisfied with 
gaining a knowledge of truth for himself. He had 
been the means of his sister's conversion ; and she, in 
her turn, had aided him in his final decision. So now 
he influenced the Due de Roannez to abandon the 
worldly life, and began to meditate the great apologetic 
work which he never completed, but of which he has 
left us fragments so precious in the Thoughts. 

We are now approaching the period of Pascal's great 
controversy with the Jesuits. He was an inmate of 
Les Granges, although not strictly a member of the 
Society of the Solitaries. He passed his time among 
them or in Paris, as it proved most convenient for him ; 
probably at first the greater part at Port Royal under 
the direction of M. de Saci, and for a time, at least, in 
the enjoyment of tolerable health. During the later 
period of his controversy, which came to an end in 
1657, he seems to have spent most of his time in 
Paris. 



CHAPTER V 

The Provincial Letters 

We are now approaching the time of the great conflict 
in which Pascal stood forth as the champion of Port 
Royal and gained the undying enmity of the Jesuit 
Order. Before coming to the history of the contro- 
versy, a few words should be said on the nature of 
the dispute. That dispute is at least as old as the days 
of Augustine and the Pelagians, although the opponents 
of Pascal would deny that the Jansenists were true 
Augustinians, or that they were themselves Pelagians. 

It is agreed on all hands that man has need of divine 
grace before he can turn to God or acquire holiness of 
character. On the other hand, it is undeniable that 
man must have a certain endowment of freedom before 
he can be regarded as responsible. The dispute between 
the two opposing schools has reference to the relations 
between divine grace and human liberty. 

Pelagius taught roundly that man had himself the 
power of repenting and believing, and made grace play 
a very subordinate part. This system was a practical 
denial of original sin and the need of redemption. 
St. Augustine was raised up to defend the doctrine of 
divine grace against the Pelagians, as he had main- 
tained the doctrine of human liberty against the 
Manichseans. 



74 PASCAL 

The Schoolmen generally, especially St. Thomas 
Aquinas, were followers of Augustine; and the Ee- 
f ormers were mostly on the same side, with Luther and 
Calvin at their head. The latter went beyond Augustine 
in extending the operation of the divine decrees. 
These principles became dominant in the University of 
Louvain, and Baiiis, one of the professors, teaching a 
doctrine which was regarded as akin to that of Luther, 
was condemned by the Constitution of Urban VIII. in 
1641. The particular nature of these doctrines in 
detail will come out in the sequel. The Dominicans, 
following their great St. Thomas, made themselves the 
defenders of the doctrines of grace, and accused the 
Jesuits of Pelagianism or Semi-Pelagianism, whilst the 
Jesuits accused the Dominicans of Calvinism. The 
Universities of Louvain and Douai condemned several 
propositions put forth by Lessius, an eminent Jesuit 
theologian. Sixtus v. censured the universities, and 
imposed silence on both parties. 

The controversy was revived by several Spanish 
theologians ; and Molina, a Spanish divine, professor of 
theology in the Portuguese University of Evora, put 
forth a work on the Concord of Liberty and Grace, 
which was immediately assailed and condemned by the 
Dominicans ; and again the papal veto was put upon 
the controversy by Clement vin., who declared that 
each side might hold its own opinions, and that they 
should not treat each other as heretics. The controversy 
was continued, but it did not assume considerable 
proportions until the publication of the great work of 
Jansenius, the Augustinus, which was not put forth 
until 1640, after the death of the author. This book 
consisted of three folio volumes — the first devoted to 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 75 

an historical exposition of the Pelagian and Semi- 
Pelagian heresies, the second to the exposition of the 
Augustinian doctrine respecting the State of Innocence 
and the Fallen State, whilst the third treats of the 
grace of Christ the Saviour, and of the predestination 
of men and angels. 

Jansenius in his will declared his submission to the 
judgment of Rome, as he had also done in the preface 
to his book. But his opponents declared that his 
communications with St. Cyran were inconsistent with 
this submission. Jansenius had laboured for twenty- 
years on this book. He had read the whole works of 
the great Latin Father ten times, and the Anti-Pelagian 
treatises thirty times, and he had no doubt of the 
fidelity of his interpretation. The appearance of the 
book was the signal for hostilities, one party declaring 
that here they had the true doctrines of St. Augustine 
and St. Paul, the other that they found those of 
Luther and Calvin. 1 Pope Urban vill. in 1642 pro- 
scribed the Augustinus as being published without the 
papal sanction, and as containing propositions which 
had already been condemned. Arnauld undertook the 
defence of Jansenius. 

A further step was taken by a member of the 
theological faculty of Paris, Nicolas Cornet, putting 
forth a summary of the doctrine of the Augustinus in 
five propositions which he had submitted to the cen- 
sure of the Sorbonne. The Sorbonne, however, referred 

1 St. Cyran was in his prison at Vincennes when it appeared. But 
he at once recognised the doctrines which he and Jansenius had worked 
out together. The Augustinus, he said, would last as long as the 
Church. After St. Paul and St. Augustine, no one had written of grace 
like Jansenius. 



76 PASCAL 

the question to the judgment of the bishops of France 
who were then assembled at Paris; and the bishops 
handed it on to Pope Innocent x., who submitted it to 
a congregation of cardinals and theologians ; and after 
an examination which lasted over two years, the pro- 
positions were condemned as heretical, 31st March 1653. 
In the same year the condemnation pronounced by 
Innocent X. was adopted by the French bishops under 
the presidency of Cardinal Mazarin. 

It may be convenient in this place to give a copy of 
these famous five propositions. They are as follows : 
— 1. There are some divine precepts which are im- 
possible to just men, with the strength which they 
have, notwithstanding the efforts of their will ; nor have 
they the grace which would render them possible to 
them. 2. In the state of fallen nature interior grace is 
never resisted. 3. In order to acquire merit or demerit 
in the state of fallen nature, liberty of necessity is not 
indispensable ; liberty of coaction suffices [i.e. not a 
liberty which excludes necessity, but a liberty which 
excludes constraint]. 4. The Semi-Pelagians admitted 
the necessity of an interior prevenient grace for the 
performance of all actions, and even for the beginning 
of faith ; they were heretical in that they believed that 
the will could resist or obey. 5. It is Semi-Pelagian to 
say that Christ died and shed His blood for all men. 

The Jansenists evaded this condemnation by ad- 
mitting the heretical character of the five propositions, 
while denying that they were contained in the work 
of Jansenius. Their adversaries, however, were deter- 
mined to cut off this way of retreat, and in 1654 the 
French bishops declared that the five propositions 
were contained in the book of Jansenius, and that 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS n 

they had been condemned in the sense of his writing. 
Their judgment was confirmed by the pope who suc- 
ceeded Alexander VII., and he declared, 2nd September, 
1656, that the condemnation of Innocent x. extended to 
the teaching of Jansenius and the meaning of his book. 
In the meantime, however, something had happened 
which gave a new direction to the controversy. On 
31st January 1655 the parish priest of St. Sulpice 
deferred the granting of absolution to M. de Liancourt 
for receiving into his house a heretic, who was a friend 
of Port Royal, and for having his grandchild educated 
in the schools of the abbey. On this occasion Antoine 
Arnauld published a tract entitled Letter to a Person 
of Condition, which was violently attacked by the 
Jesuits, particularly by Father Annat. 1 Arnauld 
replied to the Jesuits, 10th July 1655, in a Second 
Letter to a Duke and Peer of France, the Due de 
Luynes. Arnauld fell back upon the distinction 
between the question of right and the question of 
fact, accepting the papal decision on the former point 
but not on the latter. He declared his readiness to 
subscribe the papal bull of 31st May 1653, which con- 
demned the five propositions attributed to Jansenius. 
But this did not satisfy his opponents. Two points 
were taken. In the first place, they retorted that he 
had justified the Augustinus of Jansenius, and called in 
question the statement that the inculpated propositions 

1 Concerning Antoine Arnauld a few words should here be said. He 
was the youngest of the twenty children of the great orator of whom we 
have already spoken, and therefore the uncle of Le Maitre and de Saci. 
He fell early under the influence of the Jansenists, and subsequently 
received priest's orders. But he would receive no emolument from the 
Church, and gave most of his property to the Church. He became a 
doctor in 1641, and, as already noted, was known as the great Arnauld. 



7% PASCAL 

were contained in the book. In the second place, they 
charged him with the first proposition, according to 
which the grace necessary is not always accorded to 
the righteous, saying that the Gospel and the Fathers 
showed us, in the person of St. Peter denying Christ, 
a righteous man to whom grace had failed. This 
second letter was submitted to the Sorbonne, the 
Faculty of Theology. 

The adversaries of Arnauld, who were backed up by 
the Government of the day, determined to silence 
Arnauld, and, in order to do so, they added to the 
Faculty a number of Mendicant friars, all of them 
Molinists, in opposition to the rules of the Faculty. 
By this means Molinist commissaries were appointed 
to examine the case. On 1st December 1655 they 
presented their report condemning Arnauld on both 
points, the question of fact and the question of right. 
It was in vain that Arnauld protested his adhesion to 
the doctrine of St. Thomas with respect to sufficient 
grace as distinct from efficacious grace, condemning 
the five propositions in whatever book they might be 
found, and asking forgiveness of the pope and of the 
bishops for having written his letter. He was not 
even permitted to state his case in person ; and on the 
14th January 1656 he was condemned on the ques- 
tion of fact by a hundred and twenty-four voices 
against seventy-one, fifteen remaining neutral. The 
condemnation was simply a foregone conclusion. 

There remained the question of right. The Thomists 
were disposed to hold Arnauld absolved, if he should 
acknowledge in the soul of the just the presence of a 
sufficient as distinct from an efficient grace. But the 
Molinists endeavoured to stop the discussion. The 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 79 

Jansenists and the friends of Port Royal had little 
expectation of securing the acquittal of Arnauld by 
the Sorbonne; and they began to think of carrying 
the matter before another tribunal, that of the public. 
Arnauld was told that he must not suffer himself to be 
condemned like a child, without making the public 
acquainted with the merits of the case. He had done 
something in this way, but without attracting much 
attention to his defence, or, indeed, satisfying his 
friends that he could do so. 

In this emergency the help of Pascal was invoked ; 
and he, although by no means confident of the result, 
set himself to the task; and the first Provincial was 
the result. His friends were astonished and delighted, 
and herein only anticipated the judgment of the great 
public to whom the appeal was made. On the 23rd 
January 1656 this first letter was given to the world ; 
the eighteenth and last, it may here be mentioned, 
appeared on 24th March 1657. 

The question which naturally presents itself to us 
who read these letters nearly two centuries and a half 
after the date of their publication, has chiefly reference 
to their permanent interest and importance. And this 
question will be answered differently according to the 
point of view from which we survey the controversy, 
and perhaps also according to the subjects and aspects 
of the conflict to which we may direct our attention. 
According to some, the controversy in which Pascal 
was engaged was a mere dispute among theologians, 
which no longer interests the world, or even students 
of theology themselves. But even if men no longer 
controvert each other's views on predestination with 
the ardour of earlier times, it would be a rash assertion 



80 PASCAL 

to say that the doctrines of divine grace can ever cease 
to be a matter of deepest interest to Christian thinkers ; 
and there are other questions of eternal import handled 
in these letters ; and there are principles involved which 
can never be ignored or put out of sight so long as men 
speak and think in a rational manner. 

" People," says Alexander Vinet, 1 " speak of the ques- 
tions agitated in the Provincials as of questions which 
are extinct; but they are not so, and nothing can 
extinguish them. We may even say, there is, in the 
debate into which Pascal cast the weight of his genius 
and of his conviction, nothing which is not of interest 
for all ages. The conflict of Doctor Arnauld with the 
Sorbonne, the play of passions and of intrigue in the 
bosom of this corporation of theologians, the popular 
passion which we hear breaking forth in hollow reson- 
ance around the sacred enclosure, this minority con- 
demned before being heard, which appeals earnestly 
and suddenly from the Areopagus of the doctors to the 
public erected into a court of appeal for the second 
time since its convocation by the Reformers of the 
sixteenth century; all this can appear a matter of 
indifference only to those for whom the Fronde, on the 
other hand, is a serious event worthy of the most care- 
ful study. Let us venture to say it : Nothing greater 
than this has occurred in the course of the seventeenth 
century. The preoccupations of the public during this 
period were, at least, as important as ours. And if we 
possessed only the three first Provincials, I should not 
speak otherwise. But how much the field of the debate 
was enlarged by the illustrious pamphleteer ! . . . 

" M. Villemain has not said everything, but he has 
1 Etudes sur Blaise Pascal, 3 me ed. p. 267. 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 81 

said the truth when he has affirmed that ' the Solitaries 
of Port Royal, in seeming to discuss only scholastic 
subtleties, represented liberty of conscience, the spirit 
of inquiry, the love of justice and of truth.' From the 
point of view of our age, too exclusively preoccupied 
with civil liberty, the struggle of Port Royal and of its 
immortal secretary against an Order and against a 
party which aspired to govern the State, and which 
knew how to succeed in the attempt, is even to-day 
worthy of a lively interest. The tradition of liberty, 
let us be well assured, is perpetual as that of truth. 
There is no age in which liberty, which is one of the 
truths of the social order, has not had its representa- 
tives and its witnesses. What matters the form and 
the applications. The serious thinkers of the seven- 
teenth century did not pursue the same liberty as we 
do, or, rather, they did not, like us, seek the guarantees 
of liberty ; but, like us, they sought for liberty. . . . 

" The seventeenth century at least trained itself and 
prepared itself for liberty by religion and literature, 
which are already two liberties, and the pledge of all 
the rest. These religious discussions which we find 
excessive in the seventeenth century, this literary 
development which to us seems only to have subserved 
the glory of the nation, have not failed to lead France 
on towards liberty. Port Royal has advanced the 
country more in this path than the Fronde; and 
Louis xiv., in pensioning Racine and Despreaux, was 
pensioning liberty, of which the germ lies hidden, and 
develops itself in silence in all the exalted applications 
of the human mind. All these discussions, all these 
labours in forming a public, were preparing a people ; 
for the public is the precursor of the people." 
6 



82 PASCAL 

The interest of the Provincial Letters is manifold. 
Even if the number of those who regard the contro- 
versy concerning Divine Grace as pre-eminent has 
greatly decreased; even if the questions of morality 
and casuistry excite less concern than in former days, 
at least these letters must always make a powerful 
appeal to those who can appreciate the most exquisite 
products of human literature. 

With regard to the contents of the earlier letters in 
general, we may here notice that there are three prin- 
cipal points on the subject of Divine Grace which are 
examined. The first was that which was called Proxi- 
mate Power (jpouvoir prochain), and is dealt with in 
the first letter. The second, on Sufficient Grace, is 
examined in the second. The third, on Actual Grace, is 
explained in the fourth letter. The fourth letter, which 
appeared immediately after the Censure, shows the 
entire conformity of the Proposition of Arnauld with 
the teaching of the Fathers, so complete, indeed, that 
the doctors who censured him could point out no 
difference. These four letters complete the considera- 
tion of the case of Arnauld. Pascal then proceeds 
with his attack on the Jesuits, returning subsequently 
to the Augustinian doctrines. 

The first letter was published, in its original form, 
under the title, " Letter written to a Provincial by one 
of his friends"; and it does not seem quite clear 
whether this heading was Pascal's or the work of his 
printer. The description, however, was accurate, al- 
though it is not certain whether the " friend " was a 
particular person, and, if he was, whether he was his 
brother-in-law Perier or another What is of more 
importance to us is to appreciate the contents, in sub- 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 83 

stance and in form, of these wonderful letters. The 
writer starts in medias res. 

Sir, he begins, we were quite imposed upon. It was 
only yesterday that I was undeceived. Until then I 
had thought that the subject of the disputes in the 
Sorbonne were very important and highly momentous 
for religion. So many meetings of a company so 
celebrated as the Faculty of Theology of Paris, in 
which so many things have occurred so extraordinary 
and unprecedented, make us conceive so high an idea 
of the proceedings that it is impossible to believe that 
they did not relate to something quite extraordinary. 

However, you will be much surprised when you 
learn from the account I give you, to what end such a 
commotion has come. And this is what I will tell 
you in a few words, after having made myself per- 
fectly acquainted with it. 

Two questions were examined, the one a question of 
fact (fait), the other of right (droit). The question of 
fact consists of knowing if M. Arnauld is presumptuous 
for having said in his second letter that he had read 
carefully the work of Jansenius, and that he had not 
found there the propositions condemned by the late 
pope ; but, nevertheless, as he condemns these proposi- 
tions wherever they are found, he condemns them in 
Jansenius if they are there. 

The question is to know if he could without temerity 
testify in that manner that he doubted whether these 
propositions were in Jansenius, after the bishops had 
declared that they were there. 

The matter is brought before the Sorbonne. Seventy- 
one doctors undertake his defence, and maintain that, 



84 PASCAL 

when he read so many writings, and was asked if he 
held that these propositions were in this book, he could 
give no other answer than this, that he had not seen 
them there ; and, nevertheless, that he condemned them 
if they were there. 

Some, indeed, went further, declaring that after all 
the examination that they had made, they had never 
found them there, and that they had even found pro- 
positions quite opposed to them; and urgently re- 
questing that, if any doctor present had seen them, 
he should show them ; that this was a matter so easy, 
that it could not be refused, especially as it was a sure 
means of bringing them all over, and even M. Arnauld. 
But they were always refused. This is what passed 
on one side. 

On the other side were found eighty secular doctors, 
and some forty mendicant religious, who condemned 
the proposition of M. Arnauld without caring to 
examine if what he had said was true or false, and 
even declared that there was no question of the truth, 
but only of the temerity of his proposition. Besides 
these there were fifteen who were not for the censure, 
and who were called Indifferents. In this manner 
terminated the question of fact, with regard to which 
I need not give myself much more trouble ; since, 
indeed, the question of M. Arnauld's temerity does 
not interest my conscience. And, if I should be 
curious to know if these propositions are in Jansenius, 
his book is not so rare or so large that I could not read 
it from beginning to end so as to enlighten myself 
without consulting the Sorbonne about it. 

But, if I did not fear also to be presumptuous, I 
should follow, as I think, the way of the majority of 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 85 

the people whom I see, who, having until now believed 
on the faith of the public that these propositions are 
in Jansenius, begin to get rid of the contrary opinion 
from the strange refusal of people to point them out, 
and this to such an extent that I have never yet seen 
a person who could tell me that he had seen them. So 
that I fear this censure does more harm than good, and 
that it will give to those who learn its history an idea 
quite opposed to the decision. For, in truth, the world 
becomes distrustful, and believes things only when it 
sees them. But, as I have already said, this point is 
of small importance, since there is here no question of 
faith. 

As to the question of right, that appears much more 
considerable, since it touches the faith. I have, besides, 
taken particular care to inform myself on this point. 
But you will be quite relieved to see that it is a thing 
of as little importance as the first. 

The question is to examine what M. Arnauld said 
in the same letter : " That the grace without which we 
can do nothing was wanting to St. Peter in his fall." 
In regard to which you and I imagined that it was a 
question of examining the greatest principles of grace, 
as to whether it was given to all men, or whether it 
was efficacious by itself. But we were mistaken. I 
have become a great theologian in a short time, and 
you are going to see the proofs of it. 

In order to know the truth of the matter, I saw Mr. 
N., a doctor from Navarre, who lives near my house, 
and, as you know, is one of the most zealous opponents 
of Jansenists ; and, as my curiosity rendered me almost 
as ardent as he, I asked him whether they would not 
formally decide that " grace is given to all men," in 



86 PASCAL 

order that there should be no further question on this 
subject. But he repulsed me roughly, and told me 
that this was not the point ; that there were some on 
his side who held that grace is not given to all ; that 
the examiners had said even in the Sorbonne, that this 
opinion is problematical, and that he was himself of 
that opinion; and he confirmed it by what he called 
a celebrated passage in St. Augustine : " We know 
that grace is not given to all men." 

I apologised to him for not having quite caught his 
meaning, and I asked him if they would not at least 
condemn this other opinion of the Jansenists which 
makes so much noise, "that grace is efficacious, and 
that it determines our will to be good." But I was no 
more fortunate in this second question. " You under- 
stand nothing of the matter," he said to me ; " that is 
not a heresy : it is an orthodox opinion ; all the 
Thomists hold it ; and as for myself, I have maintained 
it in my thesis for the Sorbonne." 

I did not venture to lay my doubts further before 
him ; and, besides, I did not see further where the 
difficulty was, when, in order to get enlightened on it, 
I entreated him to tell me wherein consisted the heresy 
of the proposition of M. Arnauld. " It is," he said, " in 
this, that he does not recognise that the just have the 
power to accomplish the commandments of God in the 
manner in which we understand it." 

I left him after receiving this instruction ; and, quite 
delighted at having got at the heart of the affair, I 
found Mr. N., who was well enough to take me to his 
brother-in-law, who is a Jansenist, if ever there was one, 
but for all that a very good sort of man. In order to 
obtain a better reception with him, I pretended to be 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 87 

strongly on his side, and I said to him, was it possible 
that the S or bonne should have introduced into the 
Church this error, " that all the just have always the 
power to keep the commandments " ? " What do you 
say ? " replied my doctor ; " do you call that an error 
which is an opinion so Catholic, and which is opposed 
only by Lutherans and Cal vinists ? " " Well then," I said, 
"is it not your opinion ? " " No," he said, " we anathe- 
matise it as heretical and impious." Surprised at this 
reply, I knew well that I had gone too far in playing 
the Jansenist, as before I had been too much Molinist. 
But not being able to assure myself of the meaning 
of his reply, I entreated him to tell me in confidence 
if he held " that the just had always a real power to 
keep the commandments." My friend warmed up at 
this, but with a devout zeal, and he told me that he 
would never disguise his opinions for any reason ; that 
this was his belief, and that he and all his friends 
would defend it to the death, as being the pure doctrine 
of St. Thomas, and of St. Augustine, their master. 

He spoke so seriously to me on the subject that I 
could not doubt of his meaning. And in this assur- 
ance I returned to my first doctor, and told him with 
great satisfaction that I was sure that there would 
soon be peace in the Sorbonne; that the Jansenists 
were in agreement as to the power which the just have 
to keep the commandments ; that I was guarantee for 
it ; that I would make them sign it with their blood. 
" All very well," he said, " but one must be a theologian 
to see to the end of the matter. The difference be- 
tween us is so subtle that we can hardly discern it 
ourselves ; it would be too difficult for you to under- 
stand. Be satisfied, then, to know that the Jansenists 



88 PASCAL 

will certainly tell you 'that all the just have always 
the power to keep the commandments ' ; that is not 
the point in dispute. But they will not tell you that 
this power is proximate (prochain). 1 That is the point." 
This word was new to me and unfamiliar. Up to 
this time I had understood the controversy ; but this 
term confused me, and I believe it has been invented 
simply for the purpose of mystification. I asked him 
therefore an explanation of it ; but he made a mystery 
of it, and sent me away, without further satisfaction, 
to ask the Jansenists if they admitted this proxi- 
mate power. I charged my memory with this term, 
for my intelligence had no part in it. And, for fear 
of forgetting it, I promptly set out to find my Jan- 
senist again, to whom, immediately after the first 
civilities, I said : " Tell me, I pray you, if you admit 
the proximate power." He began to laugh, and said 
coldly : " Do you tell me first in what sense you use 
the term, and then I will tell you what I believe of it." 
As my knowledge did not go so far, I saw that I was 
not in a position to answer him ; and yet, to prevent 
my visit being useless, I said at random, " I use it in 
the sense of the Molinists." To this my friend coldly 
replied : " To which of the Molinists do you refer me ? " 
I offered him the whole of them together, as making 
but one body and acting only by one spirit. 

But he said : " You are very poorly instructed. They 
are so little agreed that they hold opinions which are 
contradictory ; but being all united in the design to 
ruin M. Arnauld, they have agreed to adopt this word 
proximate, which they are all to make use of, although 

1 "That is to say, relative and real. Yes, that is the point." The 
Abbe" Maynard, in his notes on the ' ' Provincials, ' ' thus comments. 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 89 

they understand it differently, in order that they may 
all speak the same language, and that by this apparent 
agreement they may be able to form a considerable 
body, and so compose a majority in order to make sure 
of crushing him." 

This reply surprised me. But without receiving 
these impressions of the evil designs of the Molinists, 
which I cannot believe on his word, and in which I 
have no personal interest, I applied myself simply to 
know the different senses which they gave to this 
mysterious word proximate. He answered : " I would 
willingly enlighten you on the subject; but you would 
see in it so great an opposition and contradiction, that 
you would have difficulty in believing me. You would 
suspect me of misrepresentation. You will be more 
certain of the truth by learning of themselves ; and I 
will give you their addresses. You have only to see 
separately M. le Moine and Father Nicolai'." 1 "I do 
not know either of them," said I. "Well, then," he 
said, "see if you do know any of those whom I am 
about to name to you, for they adopt the opinions of 
M. le Moine." "I know some of them quite well." 
Then he said to me: "See if you know some of the 
Dominicans who are called New Thomists, for they 
are all of one mind with Father Nicolai." I knew 
some of those whom he named to me, and resolved 
to profit by this advice and so finish the business. 

1 The reference is to Alphonse le Moine, doctor of the Sorbonne, 
professor in the faculty of theology. He was dismissed from his chair 
in 1654 and died in 1659. Father Nicolai was a Dominican ; but it 
became clear after his death that he was nothing less than a Thomist, 
and that he had completely abandoned the doctrine of his Order. Born 
in 1594, Nicolai died in 1673. He edited the works of St. Thomas 
Aquinas. — Faugere. 



90 PASCAL 

So I left him, and met first one of the disciples of 
M. le Moine. 

I entreated him to tell me what was meant by 
" having the proximate power to do anything." " That 
is easy," he answered ; " it is to have all that is necessary 
for doing it, so that nothing is lacking for action." 
" And so," I said to him, " to have proximate power to 
pass a river is to have a boat, boatmen, oars, and the 
rest, so that nothing is wanting." "Very well," he 
answered. " And to have the proximate power to see," 
I went on, "is to be in full day and to have good 
sight." "Learnedly said," he replied. "And by con- 
sequence," I continued, " when you say ' that all the just 
have always the proximate power to observe the com- 
mandments,' you mean that they have always all the 
grace necessary to keep them, so that there is nothing 
wanting to them on the part of God." " Stop," he 
said, " they have always all that is necessary to keep 
them, or at least to ask it of God." " I quite understand," 
I replied, " they have all that is necessary in order to 
pray to God to assist them, without its being necessary 
for them to have from God any new grace to pray." 
" You understand," he said. " But it is not then neces- 
sary that they should have efficacious grace in order 
to pray to God." " No," he replied, " not according to 
M. le Moine." 1 

In order not to lose time, I went to the Jacobins, 
and asked for those whom I knew to be New Thomists. 

1 Doctor le Moine, not to be confounded with Father le Moine, the 
Jesuit, was the author of a work of a novel character on Grace. He 
distinguished the grace of action from that of prayer, maintaining that 
the latter is only sufficient and that the grace of action is always 
efficient. — Faugere. 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 91 

I entreated them to tell me the meaning of proximate 
power. " Is it not," I asked, " that to which there is 
nothing lacking in order to action ? " " No," they 
replied. " But what, Father, if there is something 
lacking to this power, do you call it proximate, and 
should you say, for example, that a man has in the 
night and without any light the proximate power to 
see ? " " Yes, certainly," he said ; " according to us, he 
would have it if he were not blind." " I quite agree," 
said I ; " but M. le Moine understands it in a different 
way." " That is true," they said ; " but we understand 
it in this way." " I agree with you," said I ; " for I do 
not quarrel about a word, provided I am told before- 
hand of the meaning attached to it. But I see by this 
that when you say, the just have always the proximate 
power to pray to God, you mean that they have need 
of further help, without which they will never pray." 
" That is excellent," replied the Fathers, embracing me, 
"that is excellent; for they have need besides of 
efficacious grace which is not given to all, and which 
determines their will to pray ; and it is a heresy to 
deny the necessity of this efficacious grace in order to 
prayer." 

" That is excellent," said I in my turn ; " but accord- 
ing to you the Jansenists are Catholics, and M. le 
Moine a heretic. For the Jansenists say that the just 
have the power to pray, but yet that there is a neces- 
sity for efficacious grace ; and this is what you approve. 
And M. le Moine says that the just pray without 
efficacious grace, and that is what you condemn." 
"Yes," they replied; "but M. le Moine calls this 
power proximate power." " But surely, my Fathers," 
said I, " this is playing with words, to say that you are 



92 PASCAL 

in agreement by reason of the common terms which 
you employ, when you differ in your meaning." The 
Fathers made no answer ; and thereupon by a stroke of 
good fortune which I thought extraordinary, my friend, 
the disciple of M. le Moine, came in. But I have 
since learnt that they have frequent intercourse, and 
that they are continually meeting. 

I said, therefore, to the disciple of M. le Moine : " I 
know a man who says that all the just have always 
the power to pray to God, but that nevertheless they 
will never pray without efficacious grace to determine 
them, and which God does not always give to all His 
elect. Is that heretical ? " " Stop ! " said my doctor, 
" you might surprise me. Let us go gently, Distinguo : if 
he calls this power proximate power, he will be a Thomist 
and therefore a Catholic ; if not, he will be a Jansenist 
and therefore a heretic." " He does not call it," I said, 
" either proximate or not proximate." " He is a heretic 
then," said he ; " ask these good Fathers about it." I 
did not accept them as judges, for they consented at 
once to what he said by a movement of the head. 
But I said to him : " He refuses to accept this word 
proximate because they will not explain it." Upon 
this one of the Fathers was about to offer a definition ; 
but he was interrupted by the disciple of M. le Moine, 
who said to him : " Do you want to begin our dis- 
agreements over again ? Have we not agreed not to 
explain this word proximate, and to use it on both 
sides without saying what it means ? " To which the 
Jacobins agreed. 

In this way I penetrated their design, and said in 
rising to leave : " In truth, my Fathers, I am greatly 
afraid that all this is a pure chicanery, and whatever 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 93 

may result from your meetings, I venture to predict to 
you that if the censure should be pronounced, peace 
would not be established. For if it should be decided 
that we must pronounce the syllables pro-chain, who 
does not see that, as they have not been explained, 
each one of you will claim the victory ? The Jacobins 
will say that the word must be understood in their 
sense, M. le Moine will say that it is in his; and so 
there will be many more disputes over the explanation 
of the word than over its introduction ; for, after all, 
there would be no great danger in receiving it without 
any meaning, since it could hurt only by its meaning. 
But it would be a thing unworthy of the Sorbonne 
and of theology to use words which are ambiguous 
and captious without explaining them. For, once 
more, my Fathers, tell me, I entreat you for the last 
time, what it is necessary for me to believe in order to 
be a Catholic." "It is necessary," they answered all 
together, " to say that all the just have proximate 
power without attaching a meaning to the words : 
Abstrahendo a sensu Thomistarum et a sensu ali- 
orum Theologo7*um." 

" That is to say," I remarked in leaving them, " that 
one must pronounce this word with the lips for fear of 
bearing the name of heretic. For, in short, is this a 
scriptural word ? " " No," they said. " Is it then in 
the Fathers, or used by the Councils, or by the Popes ?" 
" No." " Is it then in St. Thomas ? " " No." " What 
necessity is there then to use it, since it has neither 
authority nor in itself any meaning ? " " You are 
obstinate," they said. " You will use the word, or you 
will be a heretic, and M. Arnauld also ; for we are the 
majority, and, if it is necessary, we will bring so 



94 PASCAL 

many Cordeliers into the field that we shall carry 
the day." 

I have just left them on this solid reason, in order to 
write to you this account by which you may see that 
there is here no question of any of the following 
points, and that they were not condemned by either 
side : — 1. That grace is not given to all men. 2. That 
all the just have power to keep the commandments of 
God. 3. That, nevertheless, in order to keep them and 
even in order to pray, they have need of efficacious grace 
which determines the will. 4. That this efficacious 
grace is not always given to all the just, and that it 
depends upon the pure mercy of God. So that there 
is nothing save the word proximate that runs any risk, 
and this without any meaning. 

Happy the people who are ignorant of it ! Happy 
those who lived before its birth ! For I can see no 
other remedy but this, that the members of the 
Academy should, by a stroke of authority, banish from 
the Sorbonne this barbarous word which causes so 
many divisions. Without this the censure seems 
assured ; but I can see that it will do no other harm 
than to render the Sorbonne contemptible by this pro- 
ceeding, which will deprive it of the authority which 
is necessary for it in other cases. 

I leave you, however, at liberty to hold for the word 
proximate or not. For I love my neighbour too much 
to persecute him under this pretext. If this relation 
does not displease you, I will continue to apprise you 
of all that takes place. — I am, etc. 

We have thought it well, in this one case at least, 
to give the whole letter, that the reader may judge 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 95 

of the great qualities by which the writer is dis- 
tinguished. In that which follows, we must be con- 
tented with extracts and condensations ; and however 
carefully these may be made, they can do no sort of 
justice to the author. We have here illustrations of 
nearly all the leading features by which the Provincials 
are marked — the clearness of statement, the firm, un- 
broken chain of logic, the fine irony, sometimes almost 
sweet and again bitter ; and perhaps less than in some 
of the subsequent letters, of that concentrated scorn 
which has been spoken of as the very note of the 
genius and style of Pascal. 

It is an obvious remark — although it is more so now 
than it would have been when the letters were written 
— that the controversy turns largely on words and 
phrases which have now, to a large extent, lost their 
meaning. But what controversy has ever taken place 
from the beginning of the world that has not turned 
largely on the ambiguity of speech ? Besides, the 
controversy was none of Pascal's seeking, nor, for that 
matter, of Port Royal. Nor was it, in fact, the honest 
attempt to refute a heresy by those who believed 
themselves to be in possession of the truth. It was 
partly an attempt to put down liberty of thought, 
and partly a determination to crush Port Royal. One 
might almost add, it was an attempt to crush the 
higher teaching of the gospel, since there can be no 
question as to the difference of tone and spirit between 
the laxness of the Jesuit and the severe and lofty tone 
of men like St. Cyran and Arnauld. 

The effect of the first Provincial was immediate, 
extensive, and profound. It was read everywhere, 
even in the Sorbonne; even those who detested its 



96 PASCAL 

theology were charmed by its wit. Voltaire was no 
mean judge of French writing, and he declared that 
Pascal was the true founder of French prose, whilst 
he considered that the wit of Moliere did not equal 
that of the early Provincials. It is indeed worth 
while to quote his very words (in his Age of 
Louis XIV.): "The first book of genius which we 
see in prose is the collection of Provincial Letters. 
All sorts of eloquence are contained in them. There 
is not a single word which, for a hundred years, has 
been affected by the changes which so frequently 
modify living languages." These letters, indeed, have 
been said to unite the wit of Moliere to the eloquence 
of Demosthenes ; but, whilst Pascal had Demosthenes 
before him as a model, his letters were published before 
Moliere was known. 

One of the Solitaries of Port Royal des Champs 
has, in his Journal, placed on record some of the con- 
sequences of these publications in the tracts to which 
they gave occasion, he having registered from day to 
day the information which the friends of "the good 
cause " transmitted to him. A large part of his Journal 
has perished, but some fragments remain ; and from 
these we obtain a good deal of information respecting 
the progress of the controversy. 

Under 1st February 1656 he records : " The letter to 
a Provincial every day produces new marvels, showing 
clearly and bravely how ridiculous is the opinion — or 
rather the different opinions — of the Molinists. All of 
those who have no interest in the matter laugh at it ; 
but the others are furious, especially the Chancellor 
(Father Segnier), from whom we are expecting some 
new act of violence on the subject." And again under 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 97 

2nd February he writes : " To-day (Candlemas), at half- 
past eleven, they have taken prisoner Savreux, book- 
seller and bookbinder, a man very much devoted to the 
good cause, his wife, and two boys from his shop, and 
put them in the prisons of the officiality (an ecclesi- 
astical office). It is against the law, and unheard of, 
that a married woman should be imprisoned for such 
things. . . . The letter to a Provincial is so well done, 
and shows with so much cleverness the injustice of 
the authors of the Censure (of Arnauld), that it is 
most offensive to the adversaries, and especially to the 
chancellor, who, I hear, has been bled seven times in 
five or six days." It is said that the reading of the 
Provincial had brought on something like an apoplectic 
seizure. 

Again, under the date 3rd February, he tells of the 
examination of Savreux x and his wife without results ; 
and then he proceeds to tell the truth about the print- 
ing. The first two letters to a Provincial were printed, 
he says, by the Sieur Petit, those letters " which by 
their agreement and the pure truth which they contain 
have excited this violence against these three printers 
(Savreux, Petit, and Desprez). The commissary having 
come to Petit's shop with several guards, and he not 
being there, his wife went up to the printing office 
with the forms, although very heavy, in her apron, 
passed down between the commissary and guards, and 
carried them into the house of a friend near at hand, 
where during the night they printed 300 copies of 
the second letter, and the next day 1200 — a thing 
which more and more enrages the enemies of the truth, 

1 Madame Savreux was set at liberty on this day. Savreux and his 
two sons, 16th February. 
7 



98 PASCAL 

and above all the chancellor, who shoots out fire and 
flame against M. Arnauld and his friends as the 
authors of these letters, which in their effect ruin the 
censure." 

It may be mentioned here that, after this, it is be- 
lieved, Petit did not continue to print the letters. The 
fifth was printed by Langlois, who was probably also 
the printer of the third and fourth. 

The first letter has different headings in different 
editions, but in all it is described as being on the 
present disputes at the Sorbonne, and in none is a 
more particular enunciation given of the subject. 
All editions of the second have the same heading, 
" On sufficient Grace " (De la Grace suffisante). The 
date is 29th January 1656. 

This letter is a continuation of the first. Pascal 
represents himself as applying again to M. N. for 
information on the subject of sufficient grace, as the 
doctrine was held by Jansenists, Jesuits, and Domini- 
cans respectively, the aim of the writer being to show 
that, although the other two parties had joined to 
crush the Jansenists, the Dominicans were, in reality, 
more in accord with them than with the Jesuits. 
These last held that sufficient grace is given to all, 
and that it is made efficient by the free will of the 
recipient. The Jansenists held with St. Augustine, that 
no grace is really sufficient which is not also efficient. 

After this he betook himself to one of his New 
Thomist friends. " He was delighted to see me. ' Well, 
Father,' said I, ' it is not enough that all men should 
have a proximate power by which, however, they 
never really act; they must also have a sufficient 
grace, with which they act as little : is not that the 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 99 

opinion of your school ? ' ' Yes,' said the good Father ; 
'and I have said so distinctly at the Sorbonne this 
morning. I spoke there the whole of my half -hour ; 
and had it not been for the sand-glass, I should have 
effected a change in the unlucky proverb which already 
circulates in Paris : " He gives his judgment with his 
cap, like a monk in the Sorbonne." ' ' And what do 
you mean by your half -hour and your sand-glass ? ' I 
asked. ' Do they cut your remarks down to a certain 
measure V 1 ' Yes,' he said, ' for some days.' ' And are 
you obliged to speak for half an hour ? ' ' No ; you 
may speak as little as you like.' ' But not as much 
as you like,' I said. ' Oh, what an excellent rule for 
the ignorant ! Oh, the civil pretext for those who have 
nothing good to say ! But at anyrate, Father, this 
grace which is given to all men is sufficient.' 'Yes,' 
said he. ' And, nevertheless, it has no effect without 
efficient grace.' ' That is true,' said he. ' And,' I con- 
tinued, 'all men have sufficient, but not all efficient 
grace.' ' True,' said he. ' That is to say,' I answered, 
'that all men have grace enough and all have not 
enough; that is, that this grace suffices, although it 
does not suffice ; that is to say, that it is sufficient in 
name and insufficient in effect. In good faith, Father, 
this doctrine is very subtle. Have you forgotten, in 
leaving the world, that which we understand by the 
word sufficient? Do you not remember that it em- 
braces all that is necessary in order to action ? But 

1 A vote to this effect was carried in the Sorbonne, 16th January 
1656. Amauld's friends protested against the restriction, and it was 
generally neglected. The chancellor, however, announced that the 
king required conformity to the rule, upon which more than sixty 
doctors left the assembly. 

LLifC. 



ioo PASCAL 

you have not lost the remembrance of it ; for, to use 
a comparison which will be more obvious to you, if 
one gave you for dinner only two ounces of bread and 
a glass of water, should you be contented with your 
Prior, who should tell you that this would be sufficient 
to nourish you, under the pretext that, with something 
else which he would not give you, you would have all 
that would be necessary for you in order to dine well ? 
How, then, do you allow yourself to say that all men 
have sufficient grace to act, since you confess that 
there is another grace necessary in order to act, which 
all do not possess ? Is it that this belief is of little 
importance, and that you leave men free to believe 
that efficient grace is necessary or not ? Is it, then, a 
thing indifferent to say that with sufficient grace one 
acts effectively ? ' ' How,' said the good man, ' in- 
different ? It is a heresy, it is a formal heresy ; the 
necessity of efficient grace in order to act effectively 
is a matter of faith ; it is a heresy to deny it.' 

" ' But where in the world have we got to ? ' I said. 
' Which side am I then to take ? If I deny sufficient 
grace, I am a Jansenist. If I admit like the Jesuits, in 
a way, that efficient grace is not necessary, I shall be 
a heretic, you tell me. And if I admit like you, in a 
way, that efficient grace is necessary, I sin against 
common sense and I am extravagant, say the Jesuits. 
What then must I do in this unavoidable necessity of 
being either extravagant, or heretical, or Jansenist? 
And to what a pass we are come, if it is only Jesuits 
who do not confound either faith or reason, and who 
save themselves at once from folly and from error.' " 

Pascal goes on to remark that his Jansenist friend took 
this discourse as of good presage, and then proceeded 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 101 

to question the Dominican, who, driven into a corner, is 
forced to confess that they who are monks must vote 
in accordance with the promises of their superiors. 
And then he is forced into a similar position to that in 
which the defenders of proximate power found them- 
selves, namely, that he was standing up for a word, 
without attaching any definite meaning to it. The 
Jansenist warns the New Thomist of the end towards 
which he is tending. " ' Your explanation,' he says, 
' would be odious in the world. These people speak 
with sincerity of things less important. The Jesuits 
will triumph. It will, in fact, be their sufficient grace 
which will be established, and not yours, which has 
only the name ; and an article of faith will be made 
which will be the contrary of your beliefs.' ' We will 
all suffer martyrdom,' said the Father, 'rather than 
consent to the establishment of sufficient grace in the 
sense of the Jesuits ; St. Thomas, whom we swear to 
follow even to the death, being directly opposed 
to it.' " 

The poor man is miserable in his difficulty, but 
receives no comfort from the Jansenist listener, who is 
represented as delivering some noble and elevated 
thoughts on the work which had to be done in defence 
of the doctrines of the faith. 

"'It is time,' he says, 'that other hands should be 
armed for this quarrel. It is time that God should 
raise up intrepid disciples to the Doctor of Grace 
[Aquinas], disciples who, ignoring the engagements of 
the world, serve God for God's sake. Grace may 
indeed no longer have the Dominicans for defenders; 
but she will never fail of defenders, for she forms them 
herself by her omnipotent strength. She requires 



102 PASCAL 

hearts that are pure and disengaged, and she herself 
purifies them, and disengages them from the interests 
of the world which are incompatible with the truths 
of the gospel. Anticipate these warnings, Father, and 
take care lest God remove this candlestick out of its 
place, and leave you in darkness and without a 
crown.' " 

Pascal concludes : " You see then by this that we 
have here a politic sufficiency, similar to proximate 
power. However, I can assure you that it seems to me 
that one may, without danger, doubt of the proximate 
power and of this sufficient grace, provided he is not a 
Jacobin, In closing my letter," he concludes, " I have 
just learnt that the Censure is pronounced ; x but I do 
not yet know in what terms, and it will not be 
published until the 15th of February." 

It may be worth while to add the words of the 
Censure pronounced by the Sorbonne: "The first 
proposition, which is a matter of fact, is presumptuous, 
scandalous, offensive to the pope and to the bishops of 
France; and, moreover, gives occasion for the entire 
removal of the doctrine of Jansenius, which has been 
already condemned. As for the second, which relates 
to the question of right, it is presumptuous, impious, 
blasphemous, smitten with anathema, and heretical." 

Between the second and third letters there comes a 
" reply from the Provincial to the first two letters of 
his friend," which was published at the head of the 
third letter. Some controversy has arisen as to the 
authorship of this letter, and of the extracts embodied 
in it. This is a question which cannot now be settled. 
If Pascal himself wrote them, they are not unworthy 
1 On 31st January 1656. 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 103 

of him. Thus he makes a member of the Academy- 
write to him, and speaks of him with charming irony 
as " one of the most illustrious among those men who 
are all illustrious," a phrase which has never been 
forgotten. This academician declares that he would 
"condemn by authority, banish, proscribe, he had 
almost said exterminate with all his might, this 
proximate power which makes so much noise about 
nothing, and without any further knowledge of what it 
wants. He is sorry, he adds, that the power of the 
academicians is too limited to allow of their doing this. 
And then the Provincial quotes from another letter 
written by one to a lady who had sent him the first of 
the letters. "You cannot imagine," he says, "how 
much obliged I am to you for the letter you have sent 
me. It is immensely ingenious and perfectly well 
written. It tells you without telling ; it clears up the 
most confused matters possible ; its raillery is exquisite ; 
it instructs even those who know but little ; it doubles 
the pleasure of those who do know something. It is, 
besides, an excellent apology, and, if you like, a delicate 
and innocent censure. And, in fact, there is so much 
art, so much intelligence, and so much judgment in this 
letter, that I should much like to know who wrote it," 
etc. 

Even in English this sounds remarkably like Pascal ; 
and if it is his, he was amply justified in speaking thus 
of his own work. It is perhaps more probable that 
it was written by one of his friends ; but, if he wrote 
it, he would certainly derive some pleasure from the 
increased difficulty of the problem he was furnishing 
to the foes of Port Royal. 

The third letter had reference to the Censure, and 



104 PASCAL 

was declared in the superscription, dated 9th February 
1656, "to serve as an answer to the preceding," with a 
second title, which appears in all our present printed 
editions, but apparently not in all the original ones: 
"Injustice, absurdity, and nullity of the Censure of 
M. Arnauld." This, at least, correctly sets forth the 
contents of the letter. It produced even a greater 
impression on the public than the first two. So we are 
informed by the Journal of M. Saint-Gilles under date 
of 12th February: "The third letter to a Provincial 
touching the matters of grace, and particularly on the 
censure of the letter of M. Arnauld by the Molinists, 
has begun to appear to-day with an eclat and an 
amount of applause still greater than the two preceding 
ones. The copies have been distributed in Paris and 
throughout the provinces by dozens, and the success 
which attends them everywhere is incredible. It is 
found that these little pieces produce a much greater 
effect than the other letters, although longer and more 
important ; since in a very short time the truth is 
conveyed in an agreeable manner to the mind." 

Near the beginning of the letter the writer reminds 
his correspondent of the way in which the Jansenists 
had been treated. " Remember," he says, " the strange 
impressions of the Jansenists which we have received 
so long. Recall in memory the cabals, the mistakes, 
the factions, the schisms, the outrages, of which they 
have so long been accused ; in what manner they have 
been decried and blackened in the pulpits and in 
books ; and how this torrent, which has had so much 
violence and duration, has increased in these later years, 
in which they have been accused openly and publicly 
of being not only heretics and schismatics, but apostates 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 105 

and infidels ; of denying the mystery of transubstantia- 
tion, and of renouncing Jesus Christ and the gospel. 
They have chosen the second letter of M. Arnauld, 
which, they said, was full of the most detestable errors. 
For examiners of it they have appointed his most 
declared enemies. . . . Yet for all this the proposition 
which they select is such that they can find in it 
nothing which is not so clearly and formally expressed 
in the passages of the Fathers which M. Arnauld has 
adduced in this connection, that I have never seen any- 
one who could understand the difference. Yet it was 
imagined that there was a terrible difference, since the 
passages of the Fathers being Catholic, it was necessary 
that the proposition of M. Arnauld must be horribly 
contrary to them in order to be heretical. 

"It was from the Sorbonne that we expected this 
enlightenment. All Christendom had eyes open in 
order to see in the censure of these doctors this point 
which was so imperceptible to the common run of men. 
However, M. Arnauld makes his defence, and gives in 
columns his proposition and the passages of the Fathers 
from which he took it, in order to make the agreement 
apparent to the least discerning." 

This being so, he goes on, every one was in expecta- 
tion of having the divergences pointed out. " But, 
alas ! our expectation has been disappointed. Whether, 
because those good Molinists have not lowered them- 
selves in order to instruct us on the subject, or for 
some other mysterious reason, they have done nothing 
but pronounce these words : ' This proposition is rash, 
impious, blasphemous, smitten with anathema, and 
heretical.' " 

This being so, the writer makes application to a 



106 PASCAL 

doctor of the Sorbonne who has held himself neutral 
on the question, and asks him to point out the differences 
between the proposition of Arnauld and the teachings of 
the Fathers. He was amused at the question, and said : 
" Do you imagine if there had been any difference, they 
would not have pointed it out ? " 

" ' But how,' said I, ' the thing being so, their censure 
is useless ; for what credence can be given to it when it 
is seen that it is without foundation, and refuted by the 
answers which are made to it ? ' ' Ah,' said my doctor, 
' if you knew the mind of the people, you would 
speak in another fashion. Their censure, censurable as 
it is, will have all its effect for a time ; and although, 
by showing its invalidity, it is quite certain that it 
will be found out, it is equally true that at first the 
majority will be as strongly struck by it as by the most 
just criticism possible. Provided that it is only cried 
in the streets, " Here is the Censure of M. Arnauld, 
here is the condemnation of the Jansenists," the Jesuits 
will have their story. How few there will be who read 
it ! How few of those who read it will understand it ! 
How few who will perceive that it does not meet 
the objections ! Who do you think there will be that 
will lay the matter to heart, and who will undertake to 
examine it to the foundation ? See then how all this 
helps the enemies of the Jansenists. They are sure in 
that way to triumph, for some months at least, although, 
as usual with them, the triumph is vain. It is much 
for them. By and by they will find out some new 
means of subsistence. They live from day to day. It 
is in that way that they have maintained themselves 
until now, sometimes by a catechism, where a child 
condemns their adversaries ; sometimes by a procession, 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 107 

where sufficient grace leads efficient grace in triumph ; 
sometimes by a comedy where the devils carry off 
Jansenius ; or again by an almanac, and now by this 
censure. . . .'" 

"M. le Moine, the most ardent of the examiners, 
said to a doctor who is a friend of mine : ' This 
proposition would be catholic in another mouth ; it is 
only in M. Arnauld that the Sorbonne has condemned it.' 
And so admire the machines of Molinism, which make 
such prodigious inversions of things in the Church, that 
what is Catholic in the Fathers becomes heretical in 
M. Arnauld ; that what was heretical in the Semi- 
Pelagians becomes orthodox in the writings of the 
Jesuits; that the ancient doctrine of St. Augustine 
becomes an intolerable novelty ; and that the new inven- 
tions which are fashioned every day in our sight pass 
for the ancient faith of the Church. Then he left me. 

" This instruction opened my eyes. I learnt that we 
have here a heresy of a new kind. It is not the 
sentiments of M. Arnauld which are heretical ; it is 
only his person. It is a personal heresy. He is not 
a heretic for what he has said or written, but only 
because he is M. Arnauld. This is all that can be said 
against him. Whatever he may do, unless he ceases 
to exist, he will never be a good Catholic. The grace 
of St. Augustine will never be true whilst he defends 
it. It will become so, if he should come to attack it. 
That would be a sure blow, and almost the only means 
of establishing this doctrine and destroying Molinism ; 
so much misfortune does he bring to the opinions 
which he embraces. Let us then leave here their 
disputes. They are disputes of theologians and not 
of theology." This letter is signed by the initials: 



108 PASCAL 

E. A. A. B. P. A. F. D. E. P., which are generally in- 
terpreted to stand for : Et ancien ami, Blaise Paseal, 
Auvergnat, fils de Etienne Pascal. 

The fourth Provincial turns right on the Jesuits. 
They had been referred to before, but now they are to 
be, for a time, the main object of attack; and this will 
be continued throughout the thirteen following letters, 
which deal mainly with the casuistical system of this 
Order. 

It may be well, however, before entering upon this 
part of Pascal's work to complete the subject dis- 
cussed in the first three Provincials, — a subject which 
is taken up again in the last two letters, so that these 
five epistles (1, 2, 3, 17, 18) form a complete treatise 
apart from the intermediate letters. 

Whilst Pascal was continuing his attack on the 
Jesuits, several replies were attempted, and attacks 
on the author of the letter. Father Annat had spoken 
of the unknown author of the Provincials as the 
secretary of Port Royal. Pascal replies to this in 
the seventeenth Provincial : " You suppose, in the first 
place, that the writer of the letters belongs to Port 
Royal. You further remark that Port Royal is de- 
clared heretical, from whence you conclude that the 
writer of the letters is declared heretical. It is not upon 
me, Father, that the weight of this accusation falls, but 
upon Port Royal, and you charge me with heresy only 
because you suppose I belong to it. So I shall have 
no great trouble to defend myself from the charge, 
since I have only to say to you that I do not belong to 
Port Royal ; and to refer you to my letters, where I 
have said that I am alone, and in so many terms that 
I do not belong to Port Royal." 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 109 

It is quite understood in what sense Pascal used this 
language, and that he might with equal truth have 
spoken of himself as belonging to Port Royal. He was 
not one of the Solitaries, he therefore did not belong 
to the community of Port Royal in the exact sense of 
the words. Moreover, it could hardly be said that he 
had his regular place of abode at Port Royal, since 
he had a house in Paris in which he probably wrote 
most of the letters, although the first two were prob- 
ably written at Port Royal. Moreover, he is believed to 
have been in constant communication with the Society 
of the Solitaries, who furnished him with a good deal 
of the theological material for his letters. 

In the last two letters (17th and 18th) the writer 
deals with the question of the separation of right 
and fact. And he declares that the five propositions 
were quite properly condemned by the Pope ; that 
this condemnation was received by the so-called Jan- 
senists with entire respect, and that they are quite 
ready to subscribe this condemnation. The only point 
of disagreement, and that about which so great a 
noise was raised, is the question as to whether these 
propositions, which are condemned by the whole 
world, are or are not word for word in Jansenius — 
which, he says, is a question of fact, not of right or 
of faith ; a question of indifference, on which one may 
have one opinion or another, according as one has 
read or has not read Jansenius, and as in reading him 
he has found the propositions or has not found them, — 
a question, in short, in regard to which one may be in 
error without having the least heretical opinion; for 
the Pope and the Church, which are judges of the faith, 
may themselves make a mistake as to matters of fact. 



no PASCAL 

He then gives examples of popes who have made 
mistakes in regard to questions of fact, such as Pope 
Zacharias excommunicating St. Virgilius on the subject 
of the Antipodes, the decree of Rome which proscribed 
the opinion of Galileo and the movement of the earth. 
" But this does not prove," he goes on, " that it stands 
still ; and if by constant observations it is proved that 
it is the earth that revolves, the whole united human 
race will not prevent its turning, nor themselves from 
turning with it. And so," he goes on, " if all the world 
should agree to condemn the five propositions, and 
should disagree only on the question as to whether 
they are contained textually in a certain book, a 
simple fact appreciable by the senses and the judgment, 
all this noise which is made in the Church goes for 
nothing — 'pro nihilo, Father,' as St. Bernard remarks." 
And this is his conclusion on the controversy — much 
noise about nothing. 

It would take more space than can here be given to 
indicate, even in outline, the merits of this discussion of 
the doctrine of grace, but a few words may here be added 
on the subject. It will have been remarked that the 
Jesuits and the opponents of the Jansenists habitually 
identified the teaching of the latter with that of Luther 
and Calvin. Such an accusation was certainly not 
just. There was a distinct and appreciable difference 
between Augustine and Calvin, although practically 
it may not seem considerable. Augustine's teaching 
was sublapsarian ; according to him the divine decrees 
assumed the fact of the Fall. Calvin's teaching was 
supralapsarian ; the divine decrees were said to include 
the Fall. Augustine taught Election and Pretention, 
Calvin taught Election and Reprobation. The teach- 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS in 

ing of Luther differs hardly at all from that of Augus- 
tine. As for the Jansenists, instead of their teaching 
exceeding that of the great Father whom they professed 
to follow, it seems that on one point they fell short of 
the contention of Augustine and Calvin, holding that 
grace might be resisted. Whether their teaching on 
this subject was perfectly consistent may be doubted ; 
but, at anyrate, it ought to have brought them a step 
nearer to their antagonists. 

The Jesuit side was subsequently advocated by the 
Abbe Dumas, A.D. 1700, in an anonymous work entitled 
History of the Five Propositions of Jansenius; and 
the Abbe Maynard, in his excellent edition of the 
Provincial Letters, has appended a set of notes, distin- 
guished by erudition and acumen, which are designed 
to correct the misrepresentations of the author of the 
letters. Theologically both of these writers often make 
good their position ; but the genius and brilliancy of 
their great antagonist remain untouched. As regards 
theological knowledge, Pascal made no pretensions to 
extensive reading on this subject, and had to be pre- 
pared for some points in the controversy by the men, 
some of them learned theologians, with whom he co- 
operated. A good story is told of the result of an 
interview between him and Father Thomassin of the 
Oratory, which will illustrate this point. After a 
conference of two hours, the worthy Father is reported 
to have said to himself as he took his leave : " There 
is a young man of immense intelligence, but who is 
very ignorant ; " whilst Pascal, after turning his back 
on his instructor, remarked : " There is a good man 
who is tremendously learned, but who has but little 
intelligence." 



ii2 PASCAL 

Leaving these theological questions, we return to 
the letters which assail the Jesuits, and more par- 
ticularly the moral theology and casuistry of the 
Order, the most famous and the most powerful of 
the Provincials. These extend from the fourth to 
the sixteenth letter. The questions here discussed, if 
they cannot be called more important than those 
relating to divine grace and man's free will, will 
appear to be of a more practical character, and of 
such a nature that they can be grasped by thoughtful 
and intelligent minds without any considerable amount 
of learning. 

At the beginning of the fourth Provincial, Pascal 
seems to have felt the necessity of continuing the 
argument on grace, which, as we have seen, was re- 
sumed and completed in the last two letters ; but his 
own convictions and the counsels of friends led him to 
concentrate his attack on the Jesuits, whom he knew 
to be the relentless foes of Port Royal. They had made 
the controversy personal rather than theological, he 
had said. It was not the theology, but the person of 
Arnauld that they objected to. He would not, indeed, 
imitate their mode of warfare ; but he would carry the 
war into the enemy's country. 

The attack on the morality of the Jesuits did not 
begin with Pascal. St. Cyran in 1626 had denounced 
their moral teaching in a criticism of the Summa of 
Father Garasse. Arnauld in 1643 had given a number 
of extracts from their writings which he had severely 
criticised. The Faculty of Theology of Paris in 1641 
had censured the moral teaching of Father Baunay, 
and in 1644 the University had condemned that of 
Father Hereau. But Pascal drew the attention of the 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 113 

world to the subject, and made it that it should never 
be forgotten. 

" Sir," he begins his fourth letter, " there is nothing 
like the Jesuits. I have seen Jacobins, doctors, and 
people of every kind ; but my knowledge was incom- 
plete until I made this visit. Others only copy them. 
If you would understand things, you must go to their 
source." Here begins the fight with the Jesuits, and 
it goes on to the end of the tenth letter in the form 
of "Conversations with the good Father Casuist on 
Morality, the doctrine of Probability, the direction of the 
intention, accommodations, the inutility of the love of 
God, the easiness of Confession, and the political design 
of the whole. At the close of the eleventh, the author 
replies to attacks, to pretended refutations, to calum- 
nies ; he leaves the ingenious and indirect offensive for 
the defensive, but for a defensive which is open, show- 
ing a broad side, which could give little pleasure to the 
attackers. The Provincial to whom he addressed his 
first letters has disappeared. He turns upon the re- 
verend Fathers themselves and addresses them ; it is to 
their face that he proclaims the truth." x 

Up to the tenth letter he uses the Socratic dialogue. 
From the eleventh to the sixteenth he adopts the form 
of the oration, and has been here compared to Demos- 
thenes and Cicero. Voltaire remarks that there are all 
kinds of eloquence in these compositions. 

The fairness of Pascal has been gravely impugned 

by the defenders of the Jesuits; and even his own 

friends have acknowledged that occasionally he may 

have done them a measure of injustice from the manner 

in which he has presented his arguments against them. 

1 Saiute Beuve. 
8 



ii 4 PASCAL 

But there is no reason to think that he wilfully mis- 
represented them, or that actually there is in his letters 
anything which gives a false view of their language 
or their teaching. Indeed, there seems not the least 
reason to call in question his own profession on this sub- 
ject, when he declares that he has derived his opinions 
respecting the teaching of the Jesuits from their own 
writings. He does not profess, he says, to have read 
all the books he has quoted ; he could not have thought 
of wasting his time on such bad books ; but two things 
he had done — in the first place, he had read Escobar 
twice through; and the others he had got his friends 
to read. Moreover, he had never quoted a passage 
without carefully examining it in its context, so that 
he took every possible precaution against misrepre- 
sentation. To those who know Pascal in all his writings 
such an explanation is unnecessary. He was a man 
incapable of falsehood in any shape or form — a thing 
which certainly could not be said of his antagonists. 

It may be of interest here to quote an important 
testimony on this subject. Chateaubriand, in his 
earlier days, had declared not only that the Jesuits 
were no longer dangerous, but he went so far as to say, 
" The Provincial Letters have deprived the Company 
of Jesus of its moral force ; and yet Pascal is only a 
calumniator of genius; he has left us an immortal 
falsehood." * To this, Sainte Beuve tells us, he replied, 
denying the truth of the accusation, and adding : " The 
illustrious writer whom we venture to contradict, per- 
haps in his presence, 2 has misunderstood the conscience 

1 Analyse raisonnee de UHistoire de France, tome v. p. 448, Paris, 
1831. 

2 As member of the Academy. 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 115 

of Pascal, and flattered his genius at the expense of his 
virtue." But even before these words were uttered 
Chateaubriand had done more justice to Pascal and his 
defender. When he was Ambassador from France to 
the Holy See, and saw the methods adopted by the 
Company at the election of Pius viii. to the papacy, in 
1829, he got such a view of the Jesuits that he was led 
to express himself in the following manner : " I ought 
to confess that the Jesuits had seemed to me to be too 
badly treated by public opinion. I was formerly their 
defender, and since they have been attacked in these 
later times I have neither said nor written a word 
against them. I had taken Pascal for a calumniator 
of genius, who had left us an immortal falsehood ; I 
am now forced to acknowledge that he has not exag- 
gerated in the least. The letter of Father Pavani has 
the appearance of having escaped from Escobar him- 
self ; it would fit to a marvel in the Provincial Letters. 
Since it says everything and says nothing. Since all 
the words of it are so weighed that they may be inter- 
preted as may be necessary ; " and more to the same 
effect. Pascal, then, neither did injustice nor intended 
to do injustice to the Company of Jesus. 

Before passing on to Pascal's attack on Jesuit 
casuistry, — the part of his letters which has left the 
deepest and most permanent impression upon the minds 
of his readers, — it may be useful to say a few words 
on the subject of Probabilism, which occupies so pro- 
minent a place in these letters. It has been said 
that the theory of Probabilism was not the inven- 
tion of the Jesuits; and to a certain extent this 
is true. But it is equally true that the Jesuit theo- 
logians have been principally concerned in the working 



n6 PASCAL 

out of the theory, and have been the most distinguished 
defenders of it. 

But what is Probabilism ? It is a theory of the 
lawfulness of human action ; and it teaches that men 
may act, and that directors may advise men to act, on 
a probable opinion, even when they are themselves 
convinced of another opinion which is more probable. 
There are, in fact, three theories of action advocated 
by casuists — Probabilism, Probabiliorism, and Tutiorism. 
A probable opinion is one which has the support of 
any, even one approved doctor of the Church. A 
more probable opinion is one which has the support of 
a greater amount of authority. Probabilism teaches 
that we may follow the less probable opinion even if 
our conscience is against it. Probabiliorism, on the 
contrary, teaches that we are bound to follow that 
which, on the whole, seems the more probable opinion. 
Tutiorism, again, counsels the adoption of the safer 
opinion ; for example, the opinion that God exists, and 
that He has revealed Himself, would be safer than the 
opinion that there is no God, or no God that can be 
known. 

It is perhaps in the fifth letter that we have some of 
the best examples of Pascal's attacks on the casuistry 
of the Jesuits in the form of dialogue. He begins this 
letter by assuring his correspondent that he will now 
fulfil his promise of making him acquainted with the 
moral teaching of the " good Jesuit Fathers." He derives 
his information from his friend, the Jesuit Father, who 
tells him of the way in which Jesuit confessors make 
it easy for their penitents. He found it difficult to 
believe this, because he knew some who were as 
severe as others were lax, so that it was difficult for 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 117 

him to believe that both could belong to the same 
Society. And he asks, " How can the same superiors 
consent to maxims so different ? " " That is what you 
must be taught," is the answer ; and the Father pro- 
ceeds : " Know then that it is not their object to 
corrupt men's manners [as some of their enemies had 
accused them of doing]. That is not their design. 
But it is not their only aim to reform them. That 
would be bad policy. Here is their thought. They 
have a sufficiently good opinion of themselves to believe 
that it is useful, and even necessary, for the benefit of 
religion, that their credit should extend everywhere, 
and that they should govern all consciences. And 
because the severe evangelical maxims are proper for 
the government of some sorts of persons, they make 
use of these on such occasions as are favourable to 
them. But as these maxims are not in agreement with 
the plan of most persons, they leave them when deal- 
ing with such persons, so as to have the means of 
satisfying everyone. It is for this reason that, having 
to do with persons of all sorts and conditions, and 
belonging to different nations, it is necessary to have 
casuists suited to all this diversity. 

" From this principle you can easily judge that, if 
they had only lax casuists, they would ruin their prin- 
cipal design, which is to embrace everyone, since those 
who are truly pious want a guidance which is more 
severe. But, as there are not many of this kind, there 
is no need of many severe directors to guide them. 
They have a few for the few, whilst the multitude of 
lax confessors offer themselves for the multitude of 
those who want laxity. 

" It is by this obliging and accommodating conduct, 



n8 PASCAL 

as Father Petau calls it, that they hold out their arms 
to the whole world. For, if anyone presents himself 
to them who is quite resolved to restore any ill-gained 
goods, be not afraid that they will turn him away from 
it. On the contrary, they will praise and confirm a 
resolution so holy. But let another come who wishes 
to have absolution without restitution, it will be a very 
difficult matter indeed if they do not provide the means 
of evading the duty, for which they will make them- 
selves responsible. 

" By this means they preserve all their friends, and 
defend themselves against all their enemies. For, if 
they are reproached with their extreme laxity, they 
immediately produce in public their austere directors, 
and the books which they have composed on the rigour 
of the Christian life ; and the simple people, and those 
who do not go deeply into things, are satisfied with 
these proofs. 

" Thus they have provision for all sorts of persons, 
and respond so well to the demands made upon them, 
that, when they find themselves in a country in which 
a God crucified passes for ' foolishness,' they suppress 
the scandal of the Cross, and preach only Jesus Christ 
in glory, and not Jesus Christ suffering ; as they have 
done in the Indies and in China, where they have even 
allowed idolatry to Christians by the subtle device 
of permitting them to conceal under their clothes an 
image of Jesus Christ, to which they teach them to 
refer mentally all the public worship which they render 
to the idol Chacim-Choan and to their Confucius, with 
which the Dominican Gravina reproaches them ; and 
as is testified by the memorial in Spanish presented to 
King Philip IV. of Spain by the Cordeliers of the 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 119 

Philippine Islands, related by Thomas Hurtado in his 
book on the Martyrdom of the Faith, p. 427 ; so that 
the Congregation of Cardinals, Be propaganda Fide, 
were obliged to forbid the Jesuits in particular, on 
penalty of excommunication, to allow the adoration of 
idols under any pretext, and to conceal the mystery of 
the Cross from those whom they instructed in religion ; 
commanding them expressly not to receive any to 
baptism until they had obtained this knowledge, and 
to exhibit in their churches the image of the crucifix, 
— all which is fully set forth in the decree of this 
Congregation, given on the 9th of July 1646, signed 
by Cardinal Capponi." 

It is but right to mention here that the Abbe - May- 
nard regards this statement as " one of the most odious 
calumnies of Pascal," and says that he blushes to have 
to refute it. But what does his refutation amount to ? 
In the first place, he tells us of the heroic and self- 
sacrificing missionary work of the Jesuits, which cer- 
tainly demands respect and admiration. Then he 
minimises the doings in China, but he does not deny 
that the Dominicans made these accusations. Nor 
does he deny that the Congregation, surely not without 
reason, issued such a decree as that of which Pascal 
speaks. But it was in 1645, not in 1646 ; and in the 
month of September, not in the month of July ; nor, he 
says, was it signed by Cardinal Capponi, " who never 
existed," but by Cardinal Ginetti; and he adds, not 
unreasonably, that even these slight inaccuracies ought 
not to have been found in connection with so serious 
an accusation. Moreover, he says, the decree was not 
addressed to the Jesuits in particular, but to the mis- 
sionaries in general. 



120 PASCAL 

That Pascal should have made some such slight 
errors in statement is neither wonderful nor highly- 
reprehensible. The facts remain that complaints had 
been made against the Jesuits on the grounds stated 
by Pascal, and that the Congregation had issued a 
decree against the practices complained of. And even 
if no distinction was made between the different orders 
of missionaries, it could hardly be denied that the 
Jesuits were the most "accommodating." 

Pascal's Jansenist informant assured him that he 
would find in the Jesuit relaxation of morality the 
cause of their doctrine touching grace. " You will see 
there," he says, " the Christian virtues unrecognisable 
and deprived of charity, which is their soul and life. 
You will see so many crimes so palliated and so many 
disorders allowed, that you will no longer find it 
wonderful that they maintain that all men have 
always enough grace to live in piety as they under- 
stand it. As their morality is entirely heathen, nature 
suffices for its observance. When we maintain the 
necessity for efficient grace, we give other virtues 
as its object. . . . Law and reason are graces sufficient 
for those effects. But to disengage the soul from the 
love of the world, to detach it from that which it 
holds most dear, to make it die to itself, to unite it 
with God, and to carry it up simply and invariably to 
Him, is the work of nothing else but an omnipotent 
hand. And it is as little reasonable to pretend that 
one has always full power to do this, as it would 
be to deny that those virtues which are destitute 
of the love of God, which those good Fathers con- 
found with Christian virtues, are not in our own 
power." 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 121 

Here we are touching upon a subject which, under 
different forms, runs through the whole of the letters ; 
and Pascal connects it with his other grievances 
against the Order. He declares that his informant 
spoke of the errors of the Jesuits with sorrow, and 
recommended him to have recourse to " a good casuist 
of the Society." Having found a kind old friend 
of this character, he began with some of his diffi- 
culties, and first with the trouble he had in obeying 
the Church's law of fasting. " He exhorted me," says 
Pascal, " to do violence to myself ; but as I continued 
to complain, he was touched, and tried to find some 
reason for a dispensation. He offered me several, in 
fact, which did not suit me, when he advised me to 
consider with myself whether I had not some difficulty 
in sleeping without supping. ' Yes,' I said, ' Father, 
and that frequently obliges me to have a collation at 
midday and to sup at night.' 'I am very glad,' he 
said, c to have found this means of solacing you without 
sin ; go, you are not required to fast. I do not wish 
you to believe me,' he said ; ' come to the library.' We 
went, and then, taking a book, ' Here is the proof,' he 
said ; ' and God knows what a proof. It is Escobar.' 
' Who is Escobar, Father ? ' I asked. ' What ! don't you 
know who Escobar of our Society is, who has compiled 
this Moral Theology of our Fathers to the number of 
twenty-four ? ' . . . Then, having looked out the passage 
on fasting, ' Here it is,' he said to me, ' at tr. 1, ex. 13, 
n. 67 : " Is one who cannot sleep if he has not supped 
under the obligation to fast ? By no means." Are 
you not satisfied ? ' ' No, not entirely,' I said, ' for I 
can endure fasting by having a collation in the morn- 
ing and supping in the evening.' 'But see how it 



122 PASCAL 

goes on,' he said. ' They have thought of everything : 
"And what shall we say if one can dispense with a 
collation in the morning by supping in the evening ? " 
Now mark ! " Still one is not obliged to fast, for no 
one is obliged to change the order of his meals." ' ' Oh, 
the excellent reason,' said I. ' But tell me,' he went 
on, ' do you make use of much wine ? ' ' No, Father,' 
I said, ■ I cannot bear it.' ' I said that to you,' he 
replied, ' in order to warn you that you could drink of 
it in the morning, and when you liked, without break- 
ing your fast; and that holds always. Here is the 
decision of the point in the same place, n. 75 : " May 
one, without breaking his fast, drink wine at any hour 
that he pleases, and even in large quantity ? He may, 
and even hippocras." I did not remember that hip- 
pocras,' he said ; ' I must put it in my list.' ' What an 
excellent man,' I said, ' is Escobar.' ' Everbody loves 
him,' replied the Father. ' He makes such pretty 
questions. Mark this one which comes from the same 
place, n. 38 : " If a man doubts whether he is twenty- 
one years of age, is he obliged to fast ? No. But 
if I am to be twenty-one this night, one hour after 
midnight, and if to-morrow is a day of fasting, shall 
I be obliged to fast to-morrow? No. And for this 
reason, that you might eat as much as you liked, from 
midnight till one o'clock, since you would then be 
twenty-one ; and thus, having the right to break your 
fast, you are under no obligation to fast." ' ' Oh, how 
entertaining that is ! ' I said. ' One cannot get away 
from it,' he said. ' I spend days and nights in reading 
it. I do nothing else.' 

"Then arose a question as to the occasions of sin. 
The Jesuit Father said it was not always a duty to 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 123 

avoid them, and he was asked whether they might be 
sought. 'That,' he says, 'is sometimes permitted. 
The celebrated casuist, Basil Ponce, has said in his 
Treatise on Penitence, 9. 4, p. 94 ; and Father Bauny 
quotes him with approval : " One may seek an occasion 
of sin directly and for itself — primo et per se — when 
the spiritual or temporal good of ourselves or our 
neighbour prompts us to it." ' ' Truly,' said I, ' it seems 
to me that I am dreaming when I hear the religious 
speak in this fashion. But really, Father, tell me, 
on your conscience, are you of that opinion ? ' ' Cer- 
tainly not,' said the Father. ' You speak then,' I went 
on, ' against your conscience ? ' ' Not at all,' said he. 
' In that matter I did not speak according to my con- 
science, but according to that of Ponce and Father 
Bauny. And you might follow them in safety, for 
they are able men.' ' What, Father,' said I, ' because 
they have put these three lines in their book, will it 
be allowed to seek occasions of sin ? I thought that 
we should take for our rule only the sacred Scriptures 
and the tradition of the Church, but not your casuists.' 
' Oh, good God ! ' cried the Father, ' you remind me of 
those Jansenists. Do you think that Father Bauny and 
Basil Ponce cannot render their opinion probable ? ' 
' I am not contented with the probable,' I said ; ' I 
want the certain.' ' I see well,' said the good Father, 
'that you do not know the doctrine of probable 
opinions. You would speak differently if you did. 
Truly I must instruct you in it ; you will not have 
wasted your time coming here. Without that you 
could have understood nothing. It is the foundation 
and the A B C of our whole morality.' 

"I was delighted," says the author, "to see him 



124 PASCAL 

caught as I wished ; and having testified my satisfac- 
tion to him, I entreated him to explain to me what is 
a probable opinion. ' Our authors will answer you in 
that matter better than 1/ said he. ' Mark how they 
all speak of it generally, and among others our twenty- 
four, in Princ. ex. 3, n. 8 : " An opinion is called 
probable, when it is founded upon reasons of some 
consideration. Whence it sometimes happens that a 
single author of importance and weight may render 
an opinion probable." And the reason is given in the 
same place : " For a man specially addicted to study 
would not adhere to an opinion if he were not drawn to 
it by a reason good and sufficient." ' ' And so,' I said, 
' a single doctor may turn and upset men's consciences 
at his will, and always with safety.' ' You must not 
laugh at this,' he said, ' nor think to combat this doc- 
trine. When the Jansenists have tried to do it, they 
have wasted their time. It is too well established. 
Listen to Sanchez, who is one of the most celebrated 
of our Fathers, Sum. 1. 1, c. 9, n. 7 : " You will perhaps 
doubt if the authority of a single good and learned 
doctor renders an opinion probable. To which I 
answer, Yes. And mark how it is proved. A prob- 
able opinion is that which has a considerable founda- 
tion. Now, the authority of a learned and pious man 
is not of small consideration, but rather of great con- 
sideration. For" — mark well this reason — "if the 
testimony of such a man is of great weight in assur- 
ing us that a thing has passed, for example, in Rome, 
why should it not be of the same value in a doubt 
respecting morality ? " ' ' What a pleasant comparison,' 
I said to him, ' of things of the world to those of the 
conscience ! ' ' Have patience,' said he, ' Sanchez replies 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 125 

to that in the lines immediately following : " And the 
restriction which certain authors adduce does not 
please me, that the authority of such a doctor is 
sufficient in things of human law, but not in those of 
divine law. For it is of great weight in both." ' " 

After this Pascal declares that such a doctrine was 
very convenient and accommodating ; for one could 
never be compelled to answer a question, Yes or No. 
" ' And I see well now,' he goes on, ' how useful are the 
contradictory opinions which your doctors have on 
every subject; for the one always serves you and the 
other never hurts you. If you do not find your 
account on the one side you go to the other, and always 
with safety.' ' That is true,' he said, ' and so we can 
always say with Diana, who found Father Bauny with 
him when Father Lugo was against him — 

" Ssepe premente Deo, fert Deus alter opem." 
If one God presses us, another delivers us.' 

' I quite understand,' I said, ' but a difficulty occurs to 
my mind : it is that after having consulted one of your 
authors, and having taken from him a somewhat liberal 
opinion, one may be caught if he meets a confessor 
who is not of that way of thinking, and who refuses 
absolution unless one changes his opinion. Have you 
considered this difficulty, Father ? ' ' Do you doubt of 
it ? ' he said. ' They are obliged to absolve their penitents 
who have probable opinions, on penalty of mortal sin, 
so that they may not fail here. This is well explained 
by our Fathers, and among others by Father Bauny, 
tr. 4, de Pcenit. q. 13, p. 93 : " When the penitent," he 
says, " follows a probable opinion, the confessor ought to 
absolve him, although his own opinion may be contrary 



126 PASCAL 

to that of the penitent." ' ' But,' said I, ' he does not say 
that it is a mortal sin to refuse to absolve him.' ' How- 
precipitate you are,' he replied ; ' listen to what follows, 
he makes an express statement on the subject: "To 
refuse absolution to a penitent who acts according to a 
probable opinion is a sin which in its nature is mortal." 
And in confirmation of this sentiment he quotes three 
of the most famous of our Fathers, Suarez, Vasquez, 
and Sanchez.' 

" ' Oh, Father,' I replied, ' how prudently all this is 
arranged ! There is no more to fear ; a confessor 
would no longer dare to go wrong. I did not know 
that you had power to command on pain of damnation. 
I thought that you could only remove sins ; I did 
not think that you could introduce them. But, from 
what I see, you have all power.' ' You do not speak 
correctly,' he said. ' We do not introduce sins, we only 
point them out. I have already noted two or three 
times that you are not a good scholastic' ' However 
that may be, Father,' said I, ' my doubt is resolved 
satisfactorily.' " 

He then made inquiry of the Jesuit Father as to 
w T hat they would do in case they found the Fathers 
opposed to any of their casuists, and received for 
answer that the Fathers were good for their time, but 
they are too far removed from ourselves to be quite 
applicable to our case ; so that our morality is not 
regulated by them, but by the new casuists; so that, 
says Pascal, at the arrival of the Jesuit Company we 
have seen Augustine, Chrysostom, Ambrose, and Jerome 
and the others disappear, as far as the teaching of 
morality is concerned ; and then he asks for the names 
of the casuists who have supplanted them, and receives 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 127 

for answer no fewer than forty-five names, including 
those already mentioned and many others. On hearing 
this long list, he exclaims in terror, " Oh, Father, were 
all those people Christians ? " " How, Christians ! " he 
answered ; " did I not tell you that these are the only 
men by whom we now govern Christendom ? " 

Immediately after the publication of the fifth letter 
there occurred the "miracle" of the Holy Thorn at 
Port Royal des Champs, in which not only Pascal, but a 
large proportion of the public at that period firmly 
believed, and of which we will shortly give an account. 

At present, however, it may be as well to carry on 
and complete our account of the Provincial Letters. 
We have already spoken extensively of the early 
letters; and in those which immediately follow the 
same general subject is carried on, and in the same 
manner, by something like the Socratic method. In 
the sixth letter the writer takes up the artifices by 
which the Jesuits endeavour to elude the authority of 
the gospel, the councils, and the popes, and shows 
some of the evil consequences which result from their 
teaching on Probability. In the seventh he takes up 
the knotty question of intention, which he shows to be 
subject to manifold abuses; as, for example, in the 
permission given by some of their casuists to kill 
another in defending one's honour and his property, a 
permission which is extended even to priests and 
religious. Both of these letters were received with 
great delight, and circulated throughout the whole of 
France. The seventh even reached the hands of 
Cardinal Mazarin, who was much diverted with it. 

At the time of the publication of the seventh letter 
Pascal was living at an hotel in the Rue des Poiriers, 



128 PASCAL 

under the name of M. de Mens, a name which belonged 
to a branch of his family. While there he received a 
visit from his brother-in-law, M. Perier, who announced 
himself as a gentleman from the provinces, without 
mentioning his relationship to Pascal. Father Defrelat, 
a Jesuit, who was related to both, came to see M. 
Perier, and told him there was a prevalent opinion that 
his brother-in-law was the author of the Little Letters, 
saying that he had better warn him of this, and advise 
him to discontinue such dangerous work. Perier 
thanked him for his advice, informing him at the same 
time that it was useless ; " for," he said, " M. Pascal cannot 
prevent your suspicions ; and even if he should deny 
that the letters were his, you would not believe him. 
If, therefore, you will continue to suspect him, I see 
no remedy for it ! " What made the interview more 
uncomfortable to Perier was the fact that a number of 
copies of the seventh letter were lying on his bed to dry. 
Happily the curtains were drawn, so that Father 
Defrelat saw nothing. Immediately after his departure 
Perier went upstairs to Pascal, and told him ; where- 
upon they both had a good laugh at the manner in 
which the Jesuit had been outwitted. The Abbe 
Maynard remarks that they had already studied at the 
school of the Society ! 

The eighth letter on the " corrupt maxims " of the 
casuists, referring to judges, usurers, bankrupts, etc., has 
been thought somewhat heavy on account of the number 
of texts and quotations with which it is laden ; and it 
appears that Pascal had thought of discontinuing the 
letters at this point. Among his papers the following 
note is found : " After my eighth, I thought I had made 
sufficient answer." We should have lost much if he had 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 129 

adhered to this conviction. The eighth letter was dated 
28th May 1656. It was on 3rd July of the same year that 
he began the ninth, which certainly cannot be charged 
with any want of liveliness or interest. He begins in 
the following style : " I will pay you no more compli- 
ments than the good Father did to me the last time I 
saw him. As soon as he perceived me, he came to me 
and said, looking at a book which he held in his hand : 
' Will not he who shall open paradise to you, oblige you 
perfectly ? Would you not give millions of gold to have 
the key, and to enter whenever it seemed good to you ? 
You need not enter at a very great expense. Here is 
one key, indeed a hundred at a very low price.' I did 
not know whether the good Father was reading or 
speaking of himself ; but he put an end to my doubt 
by saying : ' Those are the first words of a fine book by 
Father Barry of our Society. The title of this book is 
Paradise opened by a Hundred Devotions to the Mother 
of God easy to practise ; ' " and Pascal, in his dialogue 
with the Jesuit Father, shows how the Jesuits have 
fostered a false devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and 
further, how they have invented facilities in order to 
enable Christians to attain salvation without difficulty 
among the softnesses and conveniences of life. He then 
proceeds to examine their maxims on ambition, envy, 
gluttony, equivocation, mental reservations, the liberty 
allowed to girls, the dresses of women, play, and 
hearing Mass. In the tenth Provincial, written about 
a month later, he carries on the same kind of examina- 
tion of the teaching of the Jesuit casuists on the 
subjects of Confession, Penitence, Absolution, Contrition, 
and the Love of God. 

It has been said that Pascal calumniated the Jesuits 
9 



130 PASCAL 

in representing them as superficially amiable and affec- 
tionate, while profoundly cruel and persecuting. But 
at least the world has justified Pascal. Sainte Beuve 
speaks of the Jesuit spirit as on the one hand caress- 
ing and enervating, and on the other diabolical and 
calumniating, which at the same time did not hate 
with an honest and vigorous hatred. It is to this 
that Pascal refers in the fifth letter (quoted above) 
when he says, " The good Father gave me a thousand 
caresses, for he always loves me." An example of this 
spirit is given in the doings of the Inquisition, in 
connection with which it is related that between two 
tortures, after a horrible description of the sufferings, 
it is added that the judges addressed the victim with 
benignity (benigne allocuti sunt) ! 

A report had been circulated about this time that 
Pascal regretted the publication of the Provincials; 
and by way of confirmation of this rumour, a story 
was told of the Marquise de Sable having asked Pascal 
if he was quite sure of the truth of the contents of 
his letters, and of his having answered that this was 
the business of those from whom he received his infor- 
mation. The story in all its details is a pure invention, 
since we have the clear testimony of Pascal's niece, 
Marguerite Perier, on the subject. She tells us that 
Pascal was asked a year before his death if he re- 
pented having written the Provincials, and this was 
his answer : "1. I answer, That, far from regretting, if 
I had to do it again, I should make them stronger. 
2. I have been asked why I have mentioned the names 
of the authors from whom I have taken all those 
abominable propositions which I have quoted. I 
answer, If I was in a town in which there were a 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 131 

dozen fountains, and I knew certainly that one of them 
was poisoned, I should be bound to warn everyone not 
to go and draw water at that fountain; and as it 
might be thought that this was a pure imagination on 
my part, I should be under obligation to name the 
person who had poisoned it, rather than expose the 
whole city to being poisoned. 3. I have been asked 
why I employed a style pleasant, bantering, diverting. 
I answer, If I had written in a dogmatic style, only 
the learned would have read my letters, and they had 
no need of them, since they knew at least as much as 
I did of the subject. So I thought it my duty to write 
in such a manner that my letters would be read by 
women and men of the world, so that they might be 
acquainted with the danger of all these maxims and 
propositions which were being spread abroad, and which 
people too readily believed. 4. I have been asked if 
I have myself read all the books which I have quoted. 
I answer, No. In that case it would have been 
necessary for me to have passed a great part of my 
life in reading very bad books ; but I have twice read 
the whole of Escobar, and, as for the others, I have had 
them read by some of my friends ; but I have not made 
use of a single passage without having read it myself 
in the book quoted, or without having examined the 
matter with reference to which it is brought forward, 
or without having read that which precedes and follows, 
so as not to run the danger of quoting an objection 
for an answer, a thing which would have been repre- 
hensible and unjust." That Pascal did not change his 
opinion of the Jesuits in his last days is clear enough 
from some of his utterances in the Thoughts. At 
this place let one suffice: "The Pope is very easily 



132 PASCAL 

surprised [misled] by reason of his engagements and 
the credence which he gives to the Jesuits; and the 
Jesuits are quite capable of surprising him for the 
sake of calumny." Throughout his later life Pascal 
cherished, and thought himself bound to cherish, a 
fervent indignation against this Order. This is well 
expressed in the words of Sainte Beuve : " When Pro- 
metheus first moulded the human clay, and caused to 
enter into it a portion of each kind of animal, he 
placed, down in the heart, a spark of the wrath of the 
lion (insani leonis vim). This spark, blind, yet, when 
moderated and controlled as it ought to be, remaining 
an essential part of every generous man, and not neces- 
sarily dying out in the Christian, belonged to Arnauld. 
He had something of the lion, it has been said ; and some- 
thing of the lion must be in every true heart. So also 
Pascal, along with the most brilliant intellectual gifts, 
possessed intact this frank faculty of moral indignation. 
There is no longer any trace of this in the human heart, 
which has been crushed by Jesuitry ; and, unfortunately, 
it has not always been replaced by divine meekness." 

It has already been remarked that there is a great 
difference of tone from the beginning of the eleventh 
Provincial. The letters are no longer addressed to the 
Provincial, but to the Jesuit Fathers (Aux R.R. P.P. 
Jesuites) ; they are no longer dialogues, they are now 
of the nature of orations. The eleventh begins with 
a defence of his method, with a contention that raillery 
is a lawful weapon to employ against folly. Answer- 
ing the reproaches of the Jesuits that he has turned 
sacred things into ridicule: "In truth, Fathers," he 
says, "there is a great deal of difference between 
laughing at religion, and laughing at those who pro- 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 133 

fane it by their extravagant opinions. It would be 
an impiety to fail in respect for the truths which the 
Spirit of God has revealed; but it would be another 
impiety to fail in scorn for the falsehoods which the 
spirit of man opposes to them. For, my Fathers, since 
you compel me to enter upon this discourse, I pray 
you to consider that, as the Christian verities are 
worthy of love and respect, the errors which are con- 
trary to them are worthy of scorn and hatred ; because 
there are two things in the verities of our religion : a 
divine beauty which renders them lovable, and a 
sacred majesty which renders them venerable; and 
that there are also two things in errors : the impiety 
which renders them horrible, and the impertinence 
which renders them ridiculous. And it is for this 
reason that the saints, as they have for truth those 
two sentiments of love and fear, and as their wisdom 
is comprehended in the fear which is its principle and 
the love which is its end, have also for error those two 
sentiments of hatred and scorn, and their zeal is em- 
ployed equally in repelling with force the malice of 
the impious, and confounding with ridicule their errors 
and their folly." Here already we are sensible of 
something of that difference of tone to which Madame 
de Sevigne has drawn attention. Throughout the 
whole of this letter he defends the use which he had 
made of ridicule by the practice of other writers, and 
even of those who are inspired. At the end of the 
letter he writes : " In finishing this letter I have seen 
a writing which you have published, in which you 
accuse me of imposture on the subject of six of your 
maxims which I have reported, and of correspondence 
with the heretics. I hope that in a very short time, 



134 PASCAL 

my Fathers, you will see an exact reply to this, after 
which I believe you will have no disposition to con- 
tinue this sort of accusation." 

The twelfth letter, dated 9th September 1656, which 
professes to be a refutation of the quibbles {chicanes) 
of the Jesuits on Almsgiving and Simony, is no less 
remarkable. It begins : " I was ready to write to you, 
my Fathers, on the subject of the insults which you 
have inflicted upon me, for so long, in your writings, in 
which you call me ' impious, buffoon, ignorant, joker, im- 
postor, caluminator, knave, heretic, Calvinist in disguise, 
disciple of Dumoulin, possessed by a legion of devils,' 
and whatever you please. I wished to make the 
world understand why you treat me in such a fashion, 
for I should be sorry that they should believe all that 
of me ; and I had resolved to complain of your calum- 
nies and your impostures when I had seen your 
answers in which your accuse me of the same," and so 
forth. After examining their statements throughout 
the letter, he remarks : " I pity you, my Fathers, for 
having recourse to such remedies. The insults which 
you inflict upon me will not explain our differences, 
and the threats which you utter in so many fashions 
will not prevent me from defending myself. You 
think you have power and impunity; but I believe 
I have truth and innocence. It is a strange and pro- 
tracted war when violence attempts to oppress the 
truth. . . . There is this extreme difference, that vio- 
lence has only a course limited by the command of God, 
who controls its effects to the glory of the truth which 
it attacks ; whilst truth subsists eternally, and finally 
triumphs over its enemies, because it is eternal and 
powerful, even as God." There can be no question 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 135 

of the sincerity of the man by whom these words were 
written. 

The thirteenth letter, which continues the discussion 
on homicide, has towards the end a startling refer- 
ence to the day of judgment, when he says : " Vasquez 
will condemn Lessius on one point, as Lessius will 
condemn Vasquez on another; and all your authors 
will rise in judgment, the one against the other, in 
mutual condemnation, for their intolerable outrages 
against the law of Jesus Christ." 

The fourteenth letter, which continues the same 
subject, has a peroration no less striking, with a 
" comic application " of the doctrine of probability, 
whilst the fifteenth becomes again keen and mocking, 
so that it has been said, " Pascal has made sport of 
the Jesuits through all eternity." An eminent French 
writer has declared that these closing letters, and 
especially the fourteenth, might be placed beside the 
greatest orations of antiquity, whilst the Philippics of 
Demosthenes and of Cicero had nothing more powerful 
or more perfect. 

The assembly of the French clergy received the Bull 
of Alexander vn., 17th March 1657, just before the 
publication of the eighteenth Provincial. This Bull 
was intended to put an end to all doubts respecting 
the application of other papal decrees, for example, 
that of Urban VIII., 1643 ; and professed to settle the 
question of fact, specifically declaring that the five 
propositions contained de facto Jansenist error. After 
receiving the Bull the assembly drew up a formulary 
condemning Jansenius, and requiring all the clergy to 
sign it. This was a great blow to Port Royal ; and 
Pascal, taking up his pen to continue his Provincials, 



136 PASCAL 

wrote to Father Annat, to whom the last of them 
had been addressed, beginning : " Be comforted, Father, 
those whom you hate are afflicted." But he went no 
further, and these great letters came to an end. We 
may be assured that the discontinuance of the letters 
was not the effect of any personal timidity on the 
part of Pascal ; but he may have thought it undesir- 
able further to provoke the enemies of Port Boyal, or 
even to hinder a movement which seemed to promise 
better for the Jansenists. 

A Latin translation of the Provincial Letters, made 
by Nicole, and published in the next year, 1658, made 
them known throughout the continent of Europe ; and 
by increasing the circle of their readers, diffused the 
fame of the writer and the extent of their influence. 
The condemnation of the writer by Home, by the 
French bishops, and by the Sorbonne, had effect given 
to it by the action of the State. A decree of the 
Council, 23rd September 1660, ordained that the book 
entitled Ludovici Montaltii Litterce Provinciates, 
should be torn and burnt by the public executioners. 
As we have seen, Pascal was moved by none of these 
things, and declared that, so far from repenting of 
what he had done, if he had to do it again, he would 
make it stronger. With regard to the papal censure, 
he said : " If my letters are condemned at Rome, that 
which I condemn in them is condemned in heaven " ; 
adding, " Ad tuum, Domine Jesu, tribunal appello." 

Much has been written on the strength, the keenness, 
the brilliancy of these mighty letters; and one may 
well hesitate to attempt anything new. Several testi- 
monies have already been quoted; and a few words 
more may be borrowed from Vinet, a great thinker 



THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS 137 

and writer, and one who was intimately and profoundly 
acquainted with the literature of France. All the 
beauties of Pascal's style, he says, are intellectual or 
moral. His masculine diction suggests the idea rather 
of steel strongly tempered and perfectly polished than 
of gold with splendid reflections. With Pascal the 
force of his style, always measured and natural, is so 
great that it hardly allows us to regret the partial 
loss of brilliancy. But never was there less misuse, 
nor even less use of a figurative style. The honour 
has been given to the Provincials, by Voltaire and 
others, of having fixed the French language. If this 
honour does not belong entirely to Pascal, if Corneille 
and Balzac may claim a part of it, that of Pascal is 
certainly the greatest. Pascal was the first to be at 
once pure and popular in prose. Balzac had been less 
popular, and Corneille, we should say, less pure. The 
decisive moment in the history of the language is 
certainly the moment of the Provincials. To fix a 
language, be it remembered, is not to arrest its de- 
velopment or limit its acquisitions; it is to reject 
finally that which it was hesitating to reject, and to 
sanction with authority all the rest. Many expressions 
which were still made use of were found condemned 
without hope of return by the contempt which Pascal 
poured upon them ; others, whose destiny was uncertain, 
he has, in the words of Madame de Sevigne, " conse- 
crated to immortality." Very few of the words which 
he made use of have gone out of use. Scarcely three 
or four could be quoted. As regards the position of 
the Little Letters among the classic works of France, 
"nothing has effaced the Provincials." Between 
antiquity and the present moment this book remains 



138 PASCAL 

unique and, like itself, alone. Pascal is the incarnation 
of Polemic. Other writers may excel him in particular 
qualities ; but " it is not to them, it is to Pascal, and 
this for reasons entirely literary, that I will first send 
the young minds who wish to learn at once the 
difficult art of discussing and the no less difficult art 
of writing." 



CHAPTER VI 

Later Years 

For a moment we must go back to an event of some 
importance, which has already been referred to as 
having taken place during the publication of the Pro- 
vincial Letters. It was on the day of the publication 
of the fifth letter, 20th April 1656, that the Solitaries 
of Port Royal, in consequence of the condemnation of 
Arnauld, were obliged to disperse. An event had 
occurred just after the issuing of the fourth letter 
which, it was vainly hoped, might engender a better 
feeling toward the persecuted Society. This was the 
" Miracle " of the Holy Thorn. 

Without giving any opinion as to the explanation 
or significance of the phenomena, we find the story of 
sufficient interest to set forth the details as they are 
furnished on substantial evidence. The healing took 
place on Pascal's niece, Marguerite, the daughter of 
Madame Perier by whom Pascal's life was written. 
She, with her elder sister, was placed by their mother 
at Port Royal, in 1653, for the sake of her education. 
For three years and a half this child was afflicted 
with a fistula lachrymalis, a disease in the corner of 
the left eye which was believed to be incurable. This 
perforation through which the tears poured was large 



140 PASCAL 

externally, and had affected the parts within, so that 
the bones of the nose and the palate became diseased, 
and the discharge from the wound became offensive, so 
that she had to be separated from the other children. 
Every effort was made to obtain relief for the 
sufferer. All the most famous specialists were con- 
sulted, but in vain. It was at this time that the blow 
was about to fall upon the Society at Port Royal. 
The king had been made to believe that these pious 
and deserted women were the supporters of heresy, 
and that Heaven might be supposed to smile on those 
who rooted out them and their errors. They heard 
that things had come to such a pass that a royal 
council was about to be held, in order to determine on 
the dispersion of the nuns ; and even that the list of 
their names had been made out, and the place of their 
banishment determined upon. This intelligence was 
received on the 20th day of March 1656. 

The Mere des Anges, aunt of Nicole, the translator 
of the Provincials, was then abbess, and she at once 
gave herself up to earnest prayer on behalf of the 
threatened community. It was reported to her that 
among other relics collected by a saintly priest, there 
was a thorn from the crown of the crucified Saviour 
that would be brought to the convent. The abbess 
considered that they were in no condition to receive 
such a gift, and only on persuasion gave her consent 
that it should be brought to the convent. These details 
are recorded and remembered, that it may be seen 
that there was no enthusiastic reception given to the 
relic. It was brought into the convent 24th March 
1656. 

The abbess had remained in prayer night and day, 



LATER YEARS 141 

The nuns had placed the thorn on an altar in the 
choir; and, after vespers, devotions were used suited 
to the crown of thorns, after which they all kissed the 
holy thorn. As Marguerite Perier approached, the 
mistress of the novices, noting her sad condition, 
asked her to recommend herself to God, and to touch 
her eye with the holy thorn. Apparently little was 
thought of what had taken place, until in the evening 
Marguerite Perier was heard to say to one of her 
sisters : " I have no longer anything the matter with 
me, the holy thorn has cured me." The sisters at 
first kept silence with wonder at what had happened, 
and sent for M. Dalence, the surgeon who had treated 
the girl and pronounced her malady incurable ; and who, 
on coming to see her, repeated the opinion he had given 
before. " Look again," they said ; and when they had 
told him all that had happened, he exclaimed : " There 
never was a miracle, if this is not one." On his 
report several physicians and surgeons came to see the 
girl, and attested the " miracle." 

Notwithstanding this attestation and the widespread 
belief in the reality of the miracle, many doubted and 
still doubt as to the true nature of the incident ; and, 
as M. Sainte Beuve remarks, whether we like it or not, 
we must do our best to understand it. It is a great 
disappointment, he says, to find, over against the Pro- 
vincials, the miracle of the holy thorn ; and he adds : 
" The Jansenists saw in it the triumph of their cause ; I 
see in it, above all, the humiliation of the human spirit." 

By those, then, who dispute the miraculous character 
of that which happened to Marguerite Perier, it is said 
that she had not exactly a fistula, but a lachrymal 
tumour caused by the obstruction of the channel of 



142 PASCAL 

tears. When this tumour was pressed, a portion of 
its contents was discharged through the lower orifice 
of the channel. There is no proof, it is said, that the 
bone was carious; the natural conduit was stopped 
by an imperfect obstacle, and this obstacle gave way 
in part when it was pressed. So, it is said, when the 
sister applied the relic to the tumour she exercised a 
sufficient pressure to bring about the emptying of the 
tumour, so that the explanation of the relief afforded 
is quite natural. The girl found herself relieved, and 
told her companions. The surgeon did not see her 
until the 31st of March, that is, seven days after the 
time of the miracle, and he then found everything 
in good condition. The cause of the suffering being 
removed, the effects speedily disappeared, especially in 
the case of a child. The surgeon had seen her about two 
months before the 24th, and he saw her seven days after. 
As a matter of fact, however, the fame of the 
miracle came to be more and more spread abroad. 
When the physicians, in their certificate of 14th April, 
declared that such a healing transcended the ordinary 
powers of nature, the public voice speedily declared 
on the same side. M. du Saussai, Vicar - General of 
Paris, who began his visitation of the monastery with 
doubts as to the propriety of sanctioning its con- 
tinuance, laid them aside in presence of this healing 
of which he made record. On 22nd October 1656, 
M. de Hodencq, another Vicar-General, in the name of 
Cardinal de Retz gave a solemn sentence of approval 
to the miracle, and caused a Te Deum to be sung ; and, 
above all, other miracles and healings by the holy 
thorn followed in quick succession to the number of 
forty, which afterwards rose to the number of eighty. 



LATER YEARS 143 

Even the Jesuits did not venture to deny the reality 
of the miracle, although they knew it would be used 
against themselves, so that they were reduced to main- 
taining that it was the work of the devil. And even 
a pope gave his sanction ; for Benedict xiil, in 1728, 
allowed it to be adduced in proof that miracles have 
not ceased in the Church. 

The " miracle " touched Pascal very closely. It not 
only happened on a member of his own family, but 
within a community in which he was deeply interested, 
and whose very existence was then threatened. There 
can be no doubt that he believed in the reality of the 
miracle, and regarded it as a divine interposition on 
behalf of Port Royal and the truth for which he was 
contending in his letters. Such was the opinion of 
his coadjutors in general. M. de Saci, we are in- 
formed, was accustomed to say to his friends that, if 
one could doubt of the justification of Port Royal by 
this miracle and by the others which followed, there 
would be no truth in the Church which might not be 
obscured ; and if these miracles were explained away, 
all those which had been worked by God or by His 
servants could easily be evaded by the same reasons. 
But not the members of Port Royal only, but the 
Queen and Cardinal de Retz, the archbishop of Paris, 
became convinced of the divine protection being ex- 
tended to the Society, and were anxious to take the 
nuns under their protection. Whatever may be our 
judgment on this strange incident, it would at least 
seem probable that it stirred up Pascal to undertake 
that great work in defence of revealed religion which 
occupied the last years of his life, and of which he 
has left us such precious fragments. 



144 PASCAL 

Marguerite Perier, the healing of whom was re- 
garded as miraculous, lived with her family for many- 
years at Clermont, and was the last to depart. She 
died in April 1733, at the age of eighty-seven years; 
and it was not unnatural that her friends, who be- 
lieved in the miracle which restored her to health, 
should have thought her life in a manner miraculous, 
and that she was preserved to the year in which she 
died in order to see the reputed miracles of the Abbe 
Paris. 

The effect of the belief in the miracle was, for a 
time at least, to free Port Royal from persecution. 
The Solitaries gradually came back, and the valley 
began to flourish as before. Many joined the nuns, 
whilst many others came to be with them for a season 
for the sake of retirement and devotion. Including 
the nuns and the Solitaries, there were two hundred and 
fifty members of the two societies, whilst the number 
under their direction amounted to several hundreds. 

Pascal's health, never robust, broke down soon after 
the conclusion of the Provincial Letters, and his 
malady took the form of toothache, which deprived 
him almost entirely of sleep. In order to obtain relief 
from the pain he endured, he set to work to reconsider 
some problems in geometry which had formerly 
occupied his attention, and this seems to have had 
the desired effect. " However," says Madame Perier, 
"his infirmities continuing, without giving him a 
moment of relaxation, he was rendered unable to con- 
tinue his work or to see any visitor. But if he was 
thus hindered from serving the public or individuals, 
his infirmities were not useless to himself, and he 
endured them with so much peacefulness and patience 



LATER YEARS 145 

that we may well believe that God willed thus to 
render him such as He willed that he should be in 
order to appear before Him ; for, during this long 
illness, he never turned from his purpose, having 
always in his mind these two great maxims, to re- 
nounce all pleasure and all superfluity. He practised 
them in his worst sickness with a constant vigilance 
over his senses, absolutely refusing to them all that 
was agreeable to them ; and when necessity con- 
strained him to do anything which could give him 
any satisfaction, he had a marvellous readiness in turn- 
ing his mind away so that it should take no part in it. 
For example, his continued maladies obliging him to 
nourish himself delicately, he took the greatest care 
not to taste what he ate. ... He never said of any- 
thing, That is good; and when we served him with 
anything new, in accordance with the seasons, if we 
asked him, after the repast, if he had found it good, he 
simply said : ' You should have warned me of this 
before ; and I assure you that I did not notice it.' And 
when it happened that anyone spoke of the pleasant- 
ness of any food in his presence, he could not endure 
it. He called it being sensual, even if it was only in 
reference to common things ; since, he said, it was a 
way of gratifying the taste, which was always bad." 
We are under the impression that, among ourselves, 
neither religion nor science would make such demands 
upon the weakness of human flesh; but that is not 
here the question. In his asceticism and rigorism 
Pascal was not merely sincere, he was obeying the 
dictates of sanctified reason and conscience, as he under- 
stood their voice ; and herein he was following in the 
footsteps of many holy men. 



146 PASCAL 

On another subject his sister remarks : " He had so 
great a love of poverty, that it was always present to 
him ; so that when he wished to undertake anything, 
or anyone asked him for advice, the first thought that 
came into his mind was to see if poverty could be 
practised. One of the things on which he examined 
himself the most, was the thought of wishing to excel 
in everything ; so also to make use of the best workmen 
in all things, and the like. He could not endure that 
people should carefully seek for all conveniences of 
life . . . and he was accustomed to say that there was 
nothing so apt to extinguish the spirit of poverty as 
this careful seeking for conveniences . . . and in regard 
to workpeople, he said we should always choose the 
poorest and the best, and not that kind of excellence 
which is never necessary, and which could never be 
useful. He was wont to cry out : ' If my heart were as 
poor as my spirit, I should be quite happy ; for I am 
marvellously persuaded that poverty is a great aid to 
one's salvation.' " 

Madame Perier goes on: "This love which he had 
for poverty led him to love the poor with so much 
tenderness, that he was never able to refuse alms, 
although he gave out of his necessity, having but little 
goods, and being obliged to expend in excess of his 
income by reason of his infirmities. But when this 
was represented to him on his giving any considerable 
amount in alms, he was displeased, and said : ' I have 
noticed one thing, that, however poor a man may be, 
he always leaves something when he dies.' Thus he 
shut the mouths of objectors ; and he sometimes gave 
away so much that he had to borrow at interest of his 
banker so as not to trouble his friends." 



LATER YEARS 147 

In the worst of his sufferings he was wont to say to 
his friends who were distressed for him : " Do not pity 
me. Sickness is the natural condition of Christians. 
In sickness we are as we ought always to be — in the 
suffering of pains, in the privation of goods and of all 
the pleasures of the senses, exempt from all the passions 
which work in us during the whole course of our life, 
without ambition, without avarice, in the continual 
expectation of death. Is it not in this manner that 
Christians should pass their life? And is it not a 
great happiness when one finds himself by necessity 
in the state in which he is obliged to be, and when one 
has nothing else to do but to submit himself humbly 
and patiently ? " 

That the spirit of Pascal pervaded the community 
may be seen from some utterances of the Mere 
Angelique. " Poverty," she says, " consists in a dis- 
position of heart to suffer the want of things necessary, 
even to die naked, like Jesus Christ. It is of such that 
we can truly say, ' Blessed are the dead that die in 
the Lord.' For, to die of poverty is to die with Jesus 
Christ and in Jesus Christ . . . we should give thanks 
to God, if we were reduced to have only bread and 
water. . . . Poverty, when it is well practised, is only 
a small austerity, not only for the body, but also for the 
mind ; because there is nothing which humbles more." 

Pascal was very strong in his protests against what 
he called attachment to created things, by which he 
meant something like the opposite of renunciation. 
" It is well," he says, " to have wife, children, goods, and, 
above all, health, when we can ; but not so as to attach 
ourselves to them in such a manner that our happiness 
depends upon them." 



148 PASCAL 

The devotion of Pascal to the interests of his fellow- 
men was profound and extensive ; and various instances 
are given by his sister. One of these is very remark- 
able. "About three months before his death there 
happened an incident which gave a very sensible proof 
of his vigilance against any loss of purity, and which, 
at the same time, illustrates the greatness of his charity. 
As he was returning one day from Mass at St. Sulpice, 
there came to him a young girl about fifteen years of 
age, very beautiful, asking for alms. He was touched 
at seeing the child exposed to palpable danger, and 
asked her who she was, and how it was that it became 
necessary for her to ask for alms ; and finding out that 
she came from the country, that her father was 
dead, and that her mother had fallen sick, — she had 
been conveyed to the H6tel Dieu on that day, — Pascal 
believed that God had sent her to him as soon as she 
had been in need, so that from that hour he conveyed 
her to the seminary, where he put her into the hands 
of a good priest to whom he gave some money, and 
asked him to take care of her, and to place her in some 
position in which she could receive guidance on ac- 
count of her youth, and where she would personally 
be in safety. In order to add to her comfort, he told 
her that he would send next day a woman to buy her 
some clothes, and all that should be necessary for her, 
to put her in a position to be able to serve a mistress. 
The next day he sent her a woman, who worked so 
well with this good priest that, after having her 
dressed, they got her into a good situation. And this 
ecclesiastic having asked of the woman the name of 
the person who was doing this charity, she told him that 
she had not been commissioned to give this informa- 



LATER YEARS 149 

tion, but that she was to come and see him from time 
to time in order to make provision, with him, for the 
wants of the girl ; and he besought her to obtain from 
him permission to communicate his name, saying: 'I 
promise you that I will never speak of it during his 
life ; but if God should permit him to die before me, I 
should have the consolation of making public this 
action, for I find it so admirable that I cannot allow it 
to remain in oblivion.' Thus, by this single encounter 
this good ecclesiastic, without knowing Pascal, judged 
how much charity and love he had for purity. He 
had an extreme tenderness for us; but this affection 
did not amount to attachment. He gave a very 
striking proof of it at the death of my sister, which 
preceded his by ten months. When he received this 
intelligence, he said only : ' May God give us grace to 
die as well !' and ever after he kept himself in wonder- 
ful submission to the dispositions of the providence of 
God, without making reflection except on the great 
graces which God had conferred upon my sister during 
her life, and on the circumstances of the time of her 
death, which made him say incessantly : ' Blessed are 
they who die, provided they die in the Lord ! ' When 
he saw me in continual affliction for this loss, which 
I felt so deeply, he was distressed, and said that this 
was not well, and that we ought not to have these 
feelings for the death of the just; and that, on the 
contrary, we should praise God for having so abund- 
antly rewarded her for the slight services which she 
had rendered to Him." 

One of the great trials of the Pascals and of Port 
Royal was the mandate of the bishops requiring them 
to sign a formulary in condemnation of Jansenius. 



ISO PASCAL 

They had been willing to condemn the five propositions 
condemned by the Sorbonne and the Pope, so long as 
they might have in reserve the opinion that the pro- 
positions did not embody the teaching of Jansenius. 
But now they were required to go further, and condemn 
the doctrines of the propositions as being those of 
Jansenius. The doctors and confessors of Port Royal 
having considered the demand, decided that with some 
modifications the nuns might sign the formulary. 
By concession on the part of some of the members of 
Port Royal, the nuns were induced to sign, as had been 
done by the house in Paris. Jacqueline de Sainte 
Euphemie, Pascal's sister, was induced to do so, and 
died of a broken heart three months afterwards. Pascal 
declared his inability to accept this compromise. He 
had gone as far as he could in rejecting the proposi- 
tions : he would not condemn Jansenius and Augustine, 
for in his mind they were inseparable. Arnauld, Nicole, 
and others were in favour of concession; but Pascal 
held out. He saw that his friends were yielding out of 
a desire to preserve Port Royal. " It is our business," he 
said, " to obey God, and not to calculate the consequences 
of our obedience; Port Royal is afraid: it is a bad 
policy." So powerfully was he affected by the dis- 
cussion, so deeply was he distressed by what he 
regarded as the surrender of the truth by his friends, 
that he fainted away, losing speech and consciousness. 
After being restored, and when the others had retired, 
leaving only his most intimate friends, the Due de 
Roannez and the members of his own family, Madame 
Perier asked him to explain the effect produced 
upon him. He replied : " When I saw all these 
persons whom I regarded as those to whom God had 



LATER YEARS 151 

made known the truth, and who ought to be its 
defenders, — when I saw them shaken and surrendering 
the truth, I confess to you that I was seized with 
such grief that I could not endure it, but succumbed 
to it." 

We cannot but agree with the language of Sainte 
Beuve : " What moral grandeur ! and how happy are 
those who can thus suffer for the integrity of conscience, 
even to fainting, even to dying ! Sacred agony ! Can 
one conceive anything more admirable than this tender- 
ness for the truth, so delicate and so vulnerable, at 
the heart of intelligences so firm and so invincible ? 
The sister dies of it, the brother falls to the ground 
without consciousness. Fontenelle, Goethe, and M. de 
Talleyrand have not these fainting fits." 

Pascal was the last representative of the spirit of 
St. Cyran, and even he had not all at once fully 
attained to it. It was his sister who from the time of 
her confession had understood it and never departed 
from it. It has been truly said that, in relation to her 
brother, she explains him, completes him, and perhaps 
in some respects surpasses him. 

About two months before his death Pascal's suffer- 
ings increased. On 29th June 1662 he left his house 
for that of his sister, Madame Perier, and this for a 
reason which illustrates the most attractive side of 
his character. He had got into his house a family, 
husband, wife, and children ; and one of the sons took 
smallpox, and he was afraid lest Madame Perier who 
came to see him every day, might carry away the 
disease to her own children ; and instead of removing 
the sick boy, he, though suffering himself, found it more 
simple to remove himself. His old friends did not 



152 PASCAL 

forget him. Arnauld, who was then under the necessity 
of concealing himself, came several times incognito to 
visit him ; and so did Nicole. So did the cur£ of St. 
Etienne. 

"He had a great desire," says Madame Perier, "to 
receive the communion; but his physicians were 
opposed to it, saying that he could not receive it 
fasting. . . . He then said : ' Since this grace cannot be 
granted to me, I should wish to substitute some good 
work ; and not being able to communicate in the head, 
I should like much to do so in the members ; and for 
that purpose I have thought to have here a poor sick 
man to whom the same services may be rendered as to 
me, having some one to watch over him, and, in short, 
making no difference between him and me, in order 
that I may have the consolation of knowing that there 
is a poor man as well treated as myself. . . . For when 
I think that at the same time that I am so well off, 
there is an infinite number of poor persons who are 
in worse health than I am, and who are destitute of 
the things which are most necessary, that gives me a 
pain which I cannot endure; and so I entreat you 
to ask the cure to find a sick man whom I may 
help.' 

" I sent to the cure at once, who informed me that 
there was no one in a condition to be removed; but 
that he could give him, as soon as he was cured, a 
means of exercising such charity, by taking charge of 
an old man of whom he might take care during the 
rest of his life ; for the cure at that time had no doubt 
that he would recover. 

" As he saw that he could not have a poor man in 
his house with him, he besought me to do him this 



LATER YEARS 153 

grace, to have him conveyed to the Incurables, because 
he had a great desire to die in the company of the 
poor. I told him that the physicians did not find it 
suitable to transport him in the state he was then in, 
which distressed him much ; and he made me promise 
that, if he had a little intermission, I would give him 
this satisfaction." 

As he grew worse, in spite of the assurances of the 
physicians that there was no danger, he saw the 
nearness of the end, and " he prayed me," says Madame 
P^rier, " to call in an ecclesiastic to pass the night near 
him ; and I found him so ill that I gave orders, without 
saying anything about it, to bring tapers and all that 
was necessary for communion on the morrow. 

" The preparations were not useless, but they were 
called into requisition sooner than we had thought ; for 
about midnight he was taken with a convulsion so 
violent, that when it passed we were afraid that he 
was dead, and we had this great disappointment, with 
all the others, to see him die without the sacrament, 
after having asked for it so often and with so much 
eagerness. But God, who would reward a desire so 
fervent and so just, suspended, as by a miracle, these 
convulsions and restored to him his judgment quite 
sound as in perfect health ; so that the cure, when 
he entered his chamber with the holy sacrament, 
cried to him, ' Here is He whom you have so greatly 
desired.' 

" These words awoke him ; and as the cure approached 
to give him the communion, he made an effort and 
half raised himself to receive it with greater respect. 
And the cure having asked him, according to custom, 
concerning the principal mysteries of the faith, he 



154 PASCAL 

answered distinctly: 'Yes sir, I believe all that with 
all my heart/ He then received the holy Viaticum 
and extreme unction with sentiments so tender that 
he shed tears. He responded to everything, thanked 
the cure\ and when he blessed him with the sacred 
Ciborium, he said, ' May God never forsake me !' — almost 
his last words ; for a moment after, having offered his 
thanksgiving, his convulsions returned and did not 
leave him again, lasting on to his death, which happened 
twenty-four hours afterwards, on the 29th of August 
1662, at one o'clock in the morning, he being thirty- 
nine years and two months old. He was buried in 
the church of St. Etienne du Mont in Paris." 

Of Pascal's zeal for the truth and fidelity to his 
convictions we have had evidence sufficient; and his 
sister declares that he had so great zeal for the glory 
of God that he could not endure that it should be 
violated in the least particular. No less striking was 
his gentleness of disposition and his readiness to forgive 
offences against himself ; indeed he seemed to forget 
such things so entirely that it was with difficulty they 
were recalled to his mind. And when anyone expressed 
admiration of this conduct, he would say : " Do not be 
surprised ; it is not by virtue, it is by mere f orgetf ulness ; 
I had no recollection of it." It was, however, clear that 
offences against himself made little impression upon 
him, since he forgot them so easily; for he had a 
memory so retentive that he often used to say that he 
had never forgotten anything of the things which he 
had wished to retain. 

One of the most conspicuous characteristics of this 
great man was his simplicity. " This great simplicity 
appeared," says Mme. Perier, " when he spoke of God or 



LATER YEARS i 55 

of himself ; so that on the evening before his death, an 
ecclesiastic [M. de Sainte Marthe of Port Royal], a man 
of great knowledge and of great virtue, having come 
to see him, as he had wished, and having remained 
an hour with him, departed so greatly edified that he 
said to me, ' Go, console yourself ; if God calls him, you 
have great reason to praise Him for the graces He has 
given him. I had always admired many great things 
in him, but I had never remarked the great simplicity 
which I have just seen. That is incomparable in a 
mind such as his. With all my heart I could wish to 
be in his place.' 

" The cure of St. Etienne, who saw him throughout 
all his sickness, marked the same thing, and said every 
hour, ' He is like a child. He is humble, he is sub- 
missive as an infant.' It was by this same simplicity 
that he gave his friends complete liberty to warn him 
of his defects, and he took the advice that was given 
him without resistance. The extreme vivacity of his 
mind rendered him sometimes so impatient that it was 
difficult to satisfy him ; but when he was warned, or 
when he perceived that he had vexed anyone by his 
impatience, he made amends for it immediately by 
such gentleness of conduct and by so many kindnesses, 
that he never in that way lost the friendship of any- 
one. . . . 

" To an ardent charity he joined, during his illness, 
a patience so admirable that he edified and surprised 
all who were about him ; and he said to those who ex- 
pressed their regret at seeing him in such a condition, 
that he felt nothing of that kind, and that he had even 
some apprehensions connected with a recovery; and 
when he was asked the reason, he said, ' It is because 



156 PASCAL 

I know the dangers of health and the advantages of 
sickness.' He said again, on occasion of the worst of 
his pains, when others were distressed at seeing him 
suffer : ' Do not pity me, sickness is the natural state of 
Christians.' He was always the same, never unequal 
to himself." It has been said, and not quite truly, of a 
great writer of another nation, that his heart, which 
few knew, was as great as his intellect, which all knew. 
Such a saying would be true of Pascal. His heart and 
his will were worthy of his intellect. To no son of 
man could higher testimony be given. 



CHAPTER VII 

The Thoughts 

For several years before his death Pascal had medi- 
tated the composition of some great work in defence 
of the Christian Religion. But his health grew worse 
and worse, and during the last year or two of his 
life, he probably did little more than now and then 
jot down a memorandum of some thought which might 
be used for his purpose. It has been doubted by some 
whether it has not been an advantage to possess these 
last fruits of the genius of Pascal in a fragmentary 
state, instead of having them presented in a completely 
organised form. It is not merely that an unfinished 
work has a certain charm of its own, raising questions 
which are unanswered, and speculations as to the 
manner in which the author would have answered 
them; and no one will deny that the fragments left 
by Pascal have an originality, a freshness, an incisive- 
ness which they might have lost in part if they had 
received further elaboration. At least, such as they 
are we possess them, and the concurrent testimony of 
the most thoughtful of the human race has assigned 
to them a unique position among the products of the 
greatest minds, and has pronounced them to be "a 
monument more enduring than brass." The most 
superficial study of these precious fragments will 

157 



158 PASCAL 

justify the title under which they were put forth — 
Pensees, "Thoughts"; and the motto affixed was no 
less happy than the title, " Pendent opera interrupts" 

There was a double aim in the mind of the writer : 
first, to defend Port Royal against the attacks made 
upon it by the Jesuits and other adversaries; and 
secondly and chiefly, to offer an Apologia, a defence of 
the Christian religion, which had long been a thought 
very near to the heart of Pascal, probably dating as 
far back as the period of his second conversion in 
1654. Considering, however, the very prominent place 
assigned to the defence of miracles as evidences of 
Christianity, it has been inferred that the principal 
part of the work was written after the " miracle " of 
the Holy Thorn in 1656. 

Before considering more particularly the contents of 
the Thoughts it may be well to give some account 
of the manner in which the work was edited and pub- 
lished. As a preface to the volume, Madame Perier 
drew up the Life of Pascal which has usually been 
prefixed to the various editions of the work. This 
Life seems to have been written soon after Pascal's 
death ; but it was not until 1668, when Pope Clement 
IX., as was supposed, had put an end to the disputes 
respecting Jansenism, and made the "peace of the 
Church," that they undertook to put the fragments in 
order. 

The principal part in this undertaking was assumed 
by the Due de Roannez, assisted by Arnauld, Nicole, 
and others. It was agreed that nothing should be 
published that would be likely to stir up any of the 
controversies between the Jansenists and Jesuits. 
But Madame Perier distinctly imposed the condition, 



THE THOUGHTS 159 

that, whilst omissions might be made, no alterations or 
additions should be allowed. The printing was finished 
in 1669, and the publication took place in 1670, the 
title of the book being, Thoughts of M. Pascal on 
Religion and some other Subjects, which have been 
found after his Death among his Papers. 1 Instead 
of the Life, prepared by Madame Perier, and published 
in subsequent editions, there was prefixed a Preface 
written by Pascal's nephew, Etienne Perier, setting 
forth the design of the work. 

In spite of the statement that nothing had been 
changed in the original manuscript or added to it, a 
great many changes and additions were made, some- 
times altering not merely the words, but the meaning. 
M. Cousin said no more than the truth when he 
declared in 1842, after examining the original, that 
there were " examples of every kind of alteration — of 
words, of phrases, suppressions, substitutions, additions, 
arbitrary compositions, and, what is worse, decomposi- 
tions more arbitrary still"; whilst two years later, 
Faugere asserts that " there are not twenty successive 
lines which do not present some alteration, great or 
small. As for total omissions and partial suppressions, 
they are without number." 

Many harsh words have been spoken of these original 
editors ; but M. Sainte Beuve declares that they " did 
not do so very badly. Let us imagine," he says, " at 
this date of 1668, our putting other men in the place 
of our worthy friends," — Roannez, Arnauld, and the 
rest, — " our forming another editing committee, and let 
us see whether the book would have had a chance of 

1 Pensees de M. Pascal sur le religion et sur quelques autres sujets, qui 
out ite trouv6es apr&s sa mort parmi ses papiers. 



160 PASCAL 

coming out of these other hands in a better condition 
and more conformed to our wishes in these days. 
Think of substituting for them Bossuet, La Rochefou- 
cauld, Fontaine, and others, and what a wonderful 
committee you would have had ! Let us then take 
things as they were. Here is the little volume in 
12mo — at its head the preface of the Perier family. 
Port Royal was nowhere mentioned, and in referring 
to the locality of the conversion of Pascal, it is said 
only that he had for some time retired into the 
country." However, the time was favourable. The 
publication lent a momentary strength and glory to 
Port Royal. Even the early age of Louis xiv., " that 
marvellous epoch, still young and already ripe," re- 
ceived lustre from this book. At this time (1670) 
Moliere had put forth the Misanthrope and Tartufe ; 
Bossuet was already a bishop, and fresh from his 
great funeral oration on the Queen of England ; 
Bourdaloue was beginning to be known as a great 
preacher ; Boileau was preparing his Art of Poetry. 
At such a time the Thoughts of Blaise Pascal appeared. 
The book was greeted with loud and unanimous 
applause. De Tillemont wrote to fitienne Perier ex- 
pressing his astonishment. "You know," he said, 
"that for many years I have honoured, or, rather, 
admired, the extraordinary gifts of nature and grace 
which appeared in the late M. Pascal. I must, never- 
theless, confess to you, sir, that I have never before 
had a sufficiently exalted idea of those gifts. This 
last writing has surpassed all that I expected from a 
mind which I regarded as the greatest which has 
appeared in our age;" and then he, a Port Royalist, 
proceeds to compare Pascal to St. Augustine. Some 



THE THOUGHTS 161 

surprise has been expressed that the Thoughts are 
seldom referred to in the theological controversies of 
that period. But it should be remembered that neither 
was Pascal a professional theologian, nor was his book 
in any sense a theological treatise. His previous 
studies, 1 his intellectual tendencies, even rendered him 
incapable of producing a work of great theological 
learning. Pascal is, above all, a polemical writer. He 
was this in his Provincials, in which he attacked the 
morality of the Jesuits ; he remained the same in the 
Thoughts, in which he defends religion from the 
attacks of the Libertines and from the indifference of 
men of the world ; and he does this, not so much with 
the skill of an orator, as with the warmth and indigna- 
tion of a believer. Pascal was not a man of wide 
learning. In the first part of the Thoughts, where he 
deals with man, his mind and his nature, it is chiefly 
to Montaigne and Charron that he is indebted. In 
the second part, which treats of religious subjects 
generally, it is the Bible and the Pugio Fidei, a theo- 
logical work of the thirteenth century. 

Whatever may have been the defects of the original 
edition of the Thoughts, it soon attained to a great 
circulation, and was everywhere read, and interest in 
its author became widespread. In 1670 Nicole pub- 
lished, in a book of his own, Pascal's discourses on the 
Condition of the Great, In 1728 Father Des Molets 
reported the conversation between Pascal and de Saci 
on Epictetus and Montaigne, and added several other 
" Thoughts," until then unpublished. These and other 
publications were recognised as having the cachet of 
the Master. 

1 Cf. Molinier, Pensees, Preface, p. xxiii. 
II 



1 62 PASCAL 

With regard to the Thoughts, it is necessary, for a 
moment, to give some brief attention to the various 
editions published, and to the efforts made to restore 
the original text. The next edition, after that of Port 
Royal, was the edition edited by Condorcet in 1776, 
which had prefixed to it a eulogium of Pascal which 
has been properly described as a criticism of the 
author which was harsh and often unjust. This 
edition was enriched (?) by several notes of Voltaire, 
caustic and incisive, of course, but of no permanent 
value. These notes of Voltaire's were only an expan- 
sion of some which he had put forth in 1734. At that 
time he was young, but he had already imbibed or 
generated the anti-Christian spirit which was prepar- 
ing for the overthrow of the Church and Christianity 
in France. Pascal was, in the eyes of Voltaire, the 
greatest representative of supernaturalism, and he 
selected him as the object of his attack. Writing to 
Formont, he said, in reference to his Philosophical 
Letters : " Should you advise me to add to them 
some short detached reflections on the Thoughts of 
Pascal ? I have long had a mind to fight this giant. 
There is no warrior so well armed that one cannot 
pierce him without his breastplate; and I confess to 
you that if, in spite of my weakness, I could inflict 
some blows on this conqueror of so many minds, and 
shake off the yoke with which he has covered them, I 
should almost dare to say with Lucretius — 

'Quare [superstitio] pedibus subjecta vicissim 
Obteritur, nos exsequat victoria cselo.' 1 

1 Voltaire substitutes sxt,perstitio for religio (in Lucretius, i. 78). 
Munro translates : ' ' Therefore religion is put under foot and trampled 
in turn ; us his victory brings level with heaven." 



THE THOUGHTS 163 

As for the rest, I will set to work with precaution, 
and I will criticise only the parts which are not so 
closely connected with our holy religion, that one 
cannot tear Pascal's skin without making Christianity 
bleed." 

There was a strain of pessimism in Pascal; while 
Voltaire, like most of the Deists of that period, was 
much given to optimism — he had not yet written 
Gandide I — and he looked upon Pascal as making the 
worst of mankind. " When," he says, " I consider 
London or Paris, I see no reason for giving way to the 
despair of which M. Pascal speaks. I see a city having 
no resemblance to a desert island, but, on the contrary, 
populous, wealthy, civilised, and where men are happy 
as far as human nature allows. Where is the wise 
man who will be full of despair because he does not 
know the nature of his thought, because he is not 
acquainted with some attributes of matter?" 

Soon after the edition of the Thoughts by Condorcet, 
there appeared the collected works of Pascal, edited 
by the Abbe Bossut in 1779. The text of this edition 
was very superior to that of its predecessor; and 
although it made no attempt to correct the text 
throughout in accordance with the manuscripts, yet 
many corrections and additions were introduced, and 
it remained the standard edition until the publication 
of that of Faugere. 

Mention should be made of an edition issued by 
M. Frantin in 1840, which, however, was not satisfac- 
tory. In 1842 Cousin published his paper on the 
Necessity of a New Edition of Pascal, which gave 
the signal for what has been called the resurrection of 
the Thoughts. By a careful examination of the manu- 



1 64 PASCAL 

scripts he pointed out the corrupt state of the text in 
all the existing editions, and the absolute necessity for 
a new edition. Two years later, in 1844, this task was 
undertaken by M. Prosper Faugere, who put forth a 
revised edition greatly superior to all its predecessors, 
but still leaving not a little to be desired. At the time 
of his death M. Faugere was occupied in preparing a 
complete edition of the works of Pascal, of which the 
Provincial Letters are already published, and the 
Thoughts are expected to follow. 

Unfortunately the defects of this edition of Faugere 
were not detected for some years; and M. Ernest 
Havet founded his edition (1852), with its excellent 
commentary, upon that text ; and this imperfect text 
was continued in the second edition. A careful 
examination of the original MSS. was instituted by 
M. Auguste Molinier, as a result of which he published 
a new text of the Thoughts in two volumes (1877, 
1879), not only giving every word as it stands in the 
original, but in every case reproducing the spelling 
of Pascal. As a consequence M. Havet revised his 
text, conforming it in all respects, except the spelling, 
to that of M. Molinier. Several other editions have 
been published, based upon the original MSS. ; but the 
differences between these and the editions last mentioned 
seem to be in arrangement, not in text. 

In proceeding to trace the plan and contents of this 
book, we naturally turn first to the "Plan of the 
Thoughts," described as the "account of a conference 
in which Pascal explained the plan and matter of his 
work on religion." It forms the preface to the first 
edition of the Thoughts, and was written by the author's 
nephew, fitienne Pascal. M. Sainte Beuve describes it 



THE THOUGHTS 165 

as a luminous abstract, which assists in penetrating 
more deeply into the Thoughts. 

It is well remarked by Vinet, when discoursing on 
this " Plan " of Pascal, that his Thoughts are not a 
book. 1 They are not one book, but perhaps two, or 
even more. They are, he continues, if we must give 
them a name and qualify them, — they are Pascal him- 
self, all Pascal. They are only the papers on which 
this great man projected all that occupied his powerful 
mind. Great pains have been taken to put these 
papers in order, and sometimes successfully; but in 
many cases we cannot be quite sure. Sometimes it 
may even be suspected that sentiments have been 
ascribed to Pascal which he meant to put in the mouth 
of an opponent. 

A good many of these " Thoughts " hardly belonged 
to the general plan of the collection. They were jotted 
down on pieces of paper and got mixed up with the 
apologetic fragments. Of these may be mentioned his 
reflections on " Authority in the subject of Philo- 
sophy," on the " Art of Persuading," on " Geometry," 
and some thoughts on Philosophy and Literature. But 
apart from these and some similar fragments, there is 
very little which does not bear upon his general 
design, which was to produce, in as complete a form 
as possible, an Apology for the Christian Religion. Of 
this we are clearly informed in the preface, to which 
allusion has already been made. 

It was about the year 1658 when Pascal communi- 
cated to his friends his ideas concerning his Apology. 
We are not told who those friends were, except that 
they were persons of high consideration, and people 
1 Vinet, Du plan attrilui & Pascal. 



1 66 PASCAL 

not ready to admire everything. It was not desirable 
to obtrude the names of Arnauld and his friends, 
although they were probably of the number. It was 
ten or twelve years ago, says M. P6rier, that is, before 
the publication of the Thoughts, that some of his 
friends asked Pascal to give an account of his Plan 
vivd voce. In answer to their request he developed in 
few words the plan of his whole work ; he told them 
what was to be the subject and the matter of it, and 
gave a summary of the arguments and principles, ex- 
plaining to them the order and sequence of the things 
which he meant to treat. And those persons, who 
were as capable as any could be of judging concerning 
such things, confessed that they had never heard any- 
thing more beautiful, more powerful, more touching, 
or more convincing ; and that they had heard enough 
of the project and design of Pascal in a discourse of 
two or three hours, made without premeditation or 
labour, to give them a notion of what it would be one 
day, if it were completed and brought to perfection 
by a person with whose power and capacity they were 
acquainted, who was accustomed to elaborate all his 
works, who was hardly ever satisfied with his first 
thoughts, however good they might appear to others, 
and who had often rewritten eight or ten times pieces 
which another would have thought admirable from 
the beginning. 

After showing them what kind of proofs make 
most impression on the minds of men, and what are 
the most calculated to persuade them, he undertook to 
show that the Christian religion had as many marks 
of certainty and of evidence as the things which are 
received in the world as the most indubitable. In 



THE THOUGHTS 167 

carrying out this design he makes first a picture of 
man, and presents it to one who has previously lived 
in ignorance and in indifference with regard to his own 
nature, and bids him consider what he is. Such a 
one is surprised to discover an infinity of things of 
which he has never thought before, and he cannot 
remark without astonishment and admiration all that 
Pascal makes him feel of his greatness and baseness, 
of his advantages and his weaknesses, of the little 
light that remains to him, and of the darkness which 
environs him on almost every side, and, finally, of all 
the astonishing contradictions which are found in his 
nature. He cannot after that remain in indifference, 
however little share of reason he may have ; and how- 
ever insensible he may hitherto have been, he must 
wish, after having thus known what he is, to know 
also whence he comes and what he is to be. 

Having thus aroused an interest in the subject, 
Pascal addresses himself first to the philosophers, point- 
ing out the defects, weaknesses, contradictions, and 
falsities in all that they have advanced, so that there 
can be little difficulty in concluding that instruction 
cannot be had from them. He then takes his hearer 
over the universe and all the ages of the world, show- 
ing him the number of religions which have prevailed, 
at the same time pointing out to him, by reasons 
powerful and convincing, that these religions are full 
of vanity, folly, errors, mistakes, and extravagances, 
and that he can find nothing in them to satisfy him. 
He then takes him to the Jews, and shows the 
extraordinary circumstances of their history, and par- 
ticularly that unique book by which they are governed, 
— a book from which he learns that the world was 



1 68 PASCAL 

the work of God, and that this same God created 
man in His image and endowed him with all his gifts 
of body and soul. Man, however, it is explained, is 
far from possessing all those advantages which he 
ought to have had when he came forth from the hands 
of his author, and when he pursues the reading of 
this same book he finds there that, after man had 
been created by God in the state of innocence, and 
with all sorts of perfections, his first action was to 
revolt against his Creator, and to employ all the 
advantages which he had received from Him in order 
to offend Him. 

After pointing out the enormity of this sin, and the 
evil effects which it wrought, he shows that the corrup- 
tion of the first man has been and will be transmitted 
to all his descendants through all time. These doctrines 
he discovers in many parts of the Bible. 

It is not enough, however, to instruct his learner in 
the misery of man. The same book contains something 
that may bring consolation. It is there said that the 
remedy is in the hands of God ; that it is to Him that 
we ought to have recourse in order to obtain the powers 
that are lacking to us, and that He will send a Liberator 
to men, who will make satisfaction for them and repair 
their impotence. 

He next points out that this book is the only one 
which has spoken worthily of the Supreme Being, 
and which has given the idea of a true religion, calling 
particular attention to the fact that it makes the 
essence of worship to consist in the love of God, — a 
singular characteristic which distinguishes this religion 
from all others, the falseness of which appears from the 
absence of this essential mark. Pascal offers no argu- 



THE THOUGHTS 169 

ments in proof of these truths, yet he has produced in 
his hearer a disposition to receive them with pleasure, 
by reason of the blessings connected with them. 

Passing from the truths to the proof of them, he 
draws attention principally to the Book of Moses in 
which these truths are particularly set forth ; and he 
shows by a great number of indubitable circumstances 
that it was equally impossible that Moses should have 
recorded falsehoods in his writings, and that the people 
to whom he had left them should have allowed them- 
selves to be deceived, even if Moses had been capable 
of deception. 

He spoke also of all the great miracles which are 
recorded in this book, and of what great importance 
they are for the religion which is taught there; he 
proved that it was impossible that they should be 
untrue, not only by the authority of the book in which 
they are contained, but also by all the circumstances 
which accompany them and which place them beyond 
doubt. 

He next pointed out the figurative character of the 
law of Moses, rinding its realisation in the coming of 
the Messiah. He then undertook to prove the truth 
of the Christian religion by the prophecies ; and he 
expatiated further on this point than on any other. 
Finally, having gone through the books of the Old 
Testament, he undertook to speak of the New Testa- 
ment, and thence to draw proofs of the truth of the 
gospel. 

He began with Jesus Christ ; and although he had 
already given irresistible proof of Him by the pro- 
phecies, and by all the figures of the law of which 
there was seen in Him the perfect accomplishment, he 



170 PASCAL 

brought forward many more proofs drawn from His 
person, His miracles, His doctrine, and from the cir- 
cumstances of His life. 

He then took up the apostles ; and in order to show 
the truth of the faith which they proclaimed every- 
where, after having established that they could not be 
accused of falseness, unless by supposing either that 
they had been impostors, or had themselves been im- 
posed upon, he showed clearly that either of these 
suppositions was equally impossible. Finally, he forgot 
nothing which could serve for the defence of the 
truth of the gospel history, making beautiful remarks 
upon the gospel itself, on the style of the evangelists, and 
on their persons ; on the apostles in particular, and on 
their writings ; on the prodigious number of miracles ; 
on the martyrs ; on the saints ; in a word, on all the 
ways by which the Christian religion is completely 
established. And although there was not time in a 
simple discourse to treat so vast a theme at length, as he 
designed to do in his work, he nevertheless said enough 
to prove that all that could not be the work of men, 
and that it was God alone who could have led the 
issue of so many different effects, all equally concurring 
to prove in an invincible manner the religion which He 
came Himself to establish among men. 

Although we have condensed some portions of this 
report of Pascal's Plan, we may not improperly close 
with the words of M. Perier: "This is the substance 
of the principal things on which he undertook to speak 
in his discourse, which he presented to those who heard 
him as only an abridgment of the great work which 
he meditated; and it is by means of one of those 
who were there present that we came to know the 



THE THOUGHTS 171 

little which I have here put on record." We shall 
have opportunities of remarking the accuracy of this 
report. 

In the preface of Port Royal from which we have 
obtained the Plan, as given viva voce by Pascal to his 
friends, we have an interesting statement of his design 
in a fragment found among those which formed the 
book of Thoughts, but not placed in that collection. It 
runs as follows : " I shall not here undertake to prove 
by natural reasons either the existence of God, or the 
Trinity, or the Immortality of the Soul, nor anything 
of that kind; not only because I should not think 
myself sufficiently powerful to find in nature that 
which would convince hardened atheists, but also be- 
cause this knowledge, without Jesus Christ, is useless 
and barren. Even if a man should be persuaded that 
the proportions of numbers are verities, immaterial, 
eternal, and dependent upon a first Verity, in whom 
they subsist, and who is called God, I should not find 
him much advanced in the way of salvation." 

He thinks that such arguments have little power over 
the majority ; and even that the few who are convinced 
by them are not permanently influenced. According 
to Pascal, the kind of proof which is most widely re- 
ceived and felt, and which has most practical efficacy, 
is the moral and historical. Arguments of this kind 
are no less convincing than the others, and they are 
more accessible, more penetrating, and more easily 
dealt with. 

It is thought that, in some of these remarks on 
the metaphysical proof of God, Pascal is aiming at 
Descartes; and that although he says very little of 
Descartes, he thinks a great deal, and indirectly seeks 



172 PASCAL 

to neutralise his influence. " I cannot pardon Des- 
cartes," he said ; " he would have liked, in all his 
philosophy, to do without God ; but he could not 
prevent His giving a fillip to put the world in motion. 
After that he has no more to do with God." And he 
had the same objection to the metaphysics of Descartes 
as to his physics. 

It is not quite easy to decide as to the best arrange- 
ment of these scattered fragments which we designate 
the Thoughts of Pascal. But all the editors seem 
to have had some regard to the outline given in the 
" Plan " contained in the original preface ; and most 
of them place near the beginning of the collection 
that which appears as the first Article in the Port 
Royal edition and in that of Havet. In this large 
section the writer sets forth at some length his opinions 
respecting human nature, its greatness and its little- 
ness, and also his want of faith in unaided human 
reason as a guide. 

Greatness and Misery of Man 

In regard to human nature, Pascal is ever earnest 
in maintaining that man is not a god or an angel on 
the one side, nor on the other is he a brute. He is a 
creature made in the image of God, who has fallen 
from his high estate. So also, he contends, he is neither 
everything nor nothing — he lies between the two. 

" He who considers himself in this manner," he goes 
on, " will be afraid of himself, and, considering himself 
sustained in the mass which nature has given him, 
between those two abysses of the Infinite and the 
Nothing, will tremble at the sight of those marvels; 



THE THOUGHTS 173 

and I believe that his curiosity will change into ad- 
miration, and he will be more disposed to contemplate 
them in silence than to examine them with presump- 
tion. 

" For, in fact, what is man in nature ? A Nothing in 
comparison with the Infinite, an All in comparison with 
the Nothing, a Mean between nothing and everything. 
Since he is infinitely removed from comprehending the 
extremes, the end of things and their beginning are 
for him hopelessly concealed in an impenetrable secret ; 
so that he is equally incapable of seeing the Nothing 
from whence he is drawn, and the Infinite in which he 
is swallowed up. 

"What will he do then, but perceive the appear- 
ance of the middle of things, in an eternal despair of 
knowing either their beginning or their end ? All 
things proceed from the Nothing, and are carried on 
to the Infinite. Who will follow these astonishing 
processes ? The author of these marvels comprehends 
them ; no other can." . . . 

" Let us then know our compass : we are something, 
and we are not everything. That which we have of 
being deprives us of the knowledge of first beginnings 
which are born of the Nothing, and the little that we 
have of being conceals from us the view of the Infinite. 
— In the order of intelligible things our intelligence 
holds the same rank as our body does in the extent of 
nature. — Limited in both departments, this state which 
holds the mean between two extremes is found in all 
our impotences. 

" Our senses perceive nothing extreme. Too much 
sound deafens us ; too much light dazzles us ; too great 
distance and too great proximity hinder our view. Too 



174 PASCAL 

great length and too great brevity of discourse alike 
tend to obscurity. 

"And that which completes our incapability of 
knowing things is the fact that they are simple in 
themselves, and that we are composed of two opposite 
natures, of different kinds, of soul and body. For it 
is impossible that the part which reasons in us should 
be other than spiritual ; and if anyone maintain that 
we are simply corporal, that would exclude us alto- 
gether from the knowledge of things, there being 
nothing so inconceivable as to say that matter knows 
itself. It is not possible for us to imagine how it 
should know itself. And thus, if we are simply 
material, we can know nothing at all ; and if we are 
composed of mind and matter, we cannot know per- 
fectly things which are simple, whether spiritual or 
corporal. . . . 

" Who would not think, seeing us compose all things 
of mind and body, that this mixture would be quite 
comprehensible to us ? Yet this is the very thing 
that we understand the least. Man is to himself 
the most prodigious object in nature; for he cannot 
conceive what the body is, and still less that which 
the mind is, and less than anything else how a body 
can be united with a mind. That is the crown 
of his difficulties; and yet that is his essential 
nature : Modus quo corporibus adhcerent spiritus com- 
prehendi ab hominibus non potest, et hoc tamen 
homo est." 1 

Here we have a striking statement of Pascal's views 
as to the limitations alike of man's being and man's 
knowledge. Moreover, we have here a problem started 
1 St. Augustine, Dc Civ. Dei, xxi. 10. 



THE THOUGHTS 175 

which we may perhaps say that Pascal received from 
Descartes, in the problem of the dual nature of mind 
and matter, which may be said to have occupied the 
thoughts of philosophers ever since. We see here an 
approach to the mode of thought which has rendered 
Pascal exposed to the charge of Pyrrhonism, to which 
we shall have again to refer. 

Pascal is at great pains to set forth the depth to 
which man has fallen ; but, in order to make this clear, 
he must first point out the height from which he has 
come down ; and he insists with great emphasis upon 
the greatness of man, and that which constitutes his 
greatness. He says : — 

"I can quite conceive of a man without hands, 
feet, head, for it is only by experience we are taught 
that the head is more necessary than the feet. But I 
cannot conceive man without thought; that would 
be a stone or a brute. 

" The greatness of man is great in the fact that he 
knows himself to be miserable. A tree does not know 
itself to be miserable. It is, then, being miserable to 
know oneself to be miserable. All these very miseries 
prove man's greatness. They are the miseries of a 
great lord — of a king deposed. 

" The greatness of man is so visible that it is even 
inferred from his misery. For that which is nature in 
animals we call misery in man, whereby we recognise 
that his nature being now like to that of the animals, 
he has fallen from a better nature which was formerly 
his own. — For who finds himself unhappy at not being 
a king, but a king deposed? Was Paulus Emilius 
thought unfortunate because of not being longer 
consul ? On the contrary, everyone thought him 



176 PASCAL 

fortunate in having been so ; because his circumstances 
did not permit of his being so always. But Perseus 
was thought unfortunate in being no longer king, 
because his circumstances allowed of his being so 
always, so that it was thought strange that he endured 
life. Who thinks himself unfortunate in having only 
one mouth ? And who will not think himself so in 
having only one eye. One is probably never afflicted 
at not having three eyes, but he is inconsolable if he 
has none. . . . 

" The greatest baseness of man is the pursuit of 
glory ; but this very thing is the greatest mark of his 
excellence; for whatever possession he may have on 
earth, whatever health and essential convenience, he is 
not satisfied if he has not the esteem of men. He 
values so highly the reason of man, that, whatever 
advantage he may have on the earth, if he is not advan- 
tageously placed also in the reason of man, he is not 
contented. That is the finest place in the world. 
Nothing can turn him from that desire, and it is the 
most ineffaceable quality of the heart of man. And 
those who most despise men and put them on a level 
with the beasts, yet wish to be admired and trusted by 
them, and contradict themselves in their thoughts ; 
their nature, which is stronger than all, convincing 
them of the greatness of man more forcibly than their 
reason convinces them of his baseness." 

And here follows that passage so often quoted, and 
so worthy to be remembered as altogether character- 
istic of its writer: " Man is but a reed, the most feeble 
thing in nature ; but he is a thinking reed. It is not 
necessary that the whole universe should arm itself to 
crush him — a vapour, a drop of water suffices to kill 



THE THOUGHTS 177 

him. But though the universe should crush him, man 
would still be more noble than that which kills him, 
because he knows that he dies and the advantage 
which the universe 1 has over him. The universe 
knows nothing of this. — All our dignity, then, consists 
in thought. It is by this that we must raise ourselves, 
not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us 
labour, then, to think well. This is the principle of 
morality." 

Here again we see the influence of Descartes, who 
not only taught the existence of two heterogeneous 
substances, mind and matter, but who said that Thought 
was the distinguishing quality of mind, and Extension 
of matter. And so Pascal proceeds : " It is not from 
space that I must seek my dignity, but from the 
regulation of my thought. I shall have no more if I 
possess worlds. By space the world comprehends and 
swallows me down like a point ; by thought I compre- 
hend the world. 

" It is dangerous to let a man see too clearly how 
much he is on a level with the beasts, without showing 
him his greatness ; and it is also dangerous to let him 
see his greatness too clearly, without seeing his baseness. 
It is still more dangerous to allow him to remain in 
ignorance of both. But it is very advantageous to set 
both before him. — A man should not be made to believe 
that he is on a level with the beasts, nor yet with the 
angels; nor should he be ignorant of his relation to 
both. It is well that he should know both. 

" Let man now know his value. Let him love him- 
self, for there is in him a nature capable of good ; but 

1 The universe here, as elsewhere in Pascal, signifies the material 
world, and not the totality of existence. 



178 PASCAL 

let him not for this reason love the baseness which 
is there. Let him despise himself since this capacity is 
empty ; but let him not, for that reason, despise this 
natural capacity. Let him hate himself, let him love 
himself ; he possesses in himself the capacity for know- 
ing the truth and being happy; but he has no truth 
either constant or satisfying. — I would then lead men on 
to desire to find truth, and to be ready and freed from 
the passions, in order to follow it wherever he shall 
find it, knowing how much his knowledge is obscured 
by the passions. I would have him hate in himself the 
concupiscence which determines him by itself, so that 
it may not blind him in making his choice, nor hinder 
him when he has chosen. . . . 

" The nature of man may be considered in two ways : 
the one according to his end, and then he is great and 
incomparable; the other according to the life of the 
multitude, just as we judge of the nature of the horse 
or the dog by the action of numbers in the course, et 
animum arcendi, and then man is abject and vile. 
And these are the two ways which make us judge 
diversely of him, and which make so many disputes 
among philosophers. For the one denies the assump- 
tion of the other. The one says, He is not born for 
this end, for all his actions are repugnant to it; and 
the other says : He departs from his end when he does 
these base actions. 

" Two things instruct a man in regard to his whole 
nature, instinct, and experience. 

"I feel that I need not have been; for my Ego 
consists in my thought. Now, I who think should not 
have been, if my mother had been killed before I had 
received life. I am not, then, a necessary being. Thus 



THE THOUGHTS 179 

I am not eternal or infinite ; but I see well that there 
is in nature a necessary Being, eternal and infinite." 

According to M. E. Havet, Pascal argues here for the 
necessary being of the mother out of which man was 
formed. But surely his argument is deeper and more 
far-reaching. As far as his own personality is con- 
cerned, he need not have existed; but something 
existed, and that something, although it may itself be 
contingent, is traced back to a Being Who is necessary, 
eternal, and infinite. We might say, perhaps, that 
while Pascal is not inclined to lay stress upon the 
ontological proof of the existence of God. he recognises 
the power of the cosmological. 

The Vanity of Man the Effect of Self -Love 

Pascal had enlarged upon man's greatness and little- 
ness, and the misery which results from his failure to 
realise his true being. He now goes on (Art. ii.) to 
speak of his dissatisfaction with his actual self, of the 
idea which he forms of what he ought to be, and of his 
striving to seem to be this ideal. Under this head he 
inveighs against our pride and vanity. He says : — 

" We are not satisfied with the life which we have 
in us and in our own being ; we want to live in the 
idea of others an imaginary life, and we strive to make 
that appear. We toil incessantly to embellish and to 
sustain this imaginary being, and we neglect the 
actual. And if we have either tranquillity or gener- 
osity, or fidelity, we do our best to make it known, in 
order to attach these virtues to this being of our 
imagination. We would rather detach them from 
ourselves in order to join them on to this ideal ; and 



180 PASCAL 

we should be willing to be cowards in order to acquire 
the reputation of being courageous. A great sign of 
the nothingness of our real being, not to be satisfied 
with the one without the other, and often to renounce 
the one for the other. For he who would not die to 
preserve his honour would be disgraced. . . . 

" Pride holds us with a possession so natural in the 
midst of our miseries, errors, etc. We lose even life 
with joy, provided it is spoken of. . . . We are so 
presumptuous that we should like to be known by the 
whole world, and even by those who will come when 
we are no longer here; and we are so vain that the 
esteem of five or six persons who are about us amuses 
and satisfies us. 1 

" Curiosity is but vanity. Most commonly we desire 
knowledge only that we may talk of it. Other- 
wise people would not cross the sea if they could say 
nothing about it, or for the sole pleasure of seeing, 
without hope of ever communicating their know- 
ledge. . . . 

" The nature of self-love and of this human Ego is to 
love only self and to consider only self. But what will 
man do ? He cannot prevent this object that he loves 
from being full of faults and miseries. He wants to 
be great, and he sees himself small. He wants to be 
happy, and he sees himself miserable. He wants to 
be perfect, and he sees himself full of imperfections. 
He wants to be the object of the love and esteem of men, 
and he sees that his faults merit only their aversion and 
contempt. This embarrassment which he experiences 

1 " Vain in the sense of the Latin vani ; that is light, wanting in seri- 
ousness, so easy to content with things vain and empty. It is a term 
habitual with Pascal." — Havet, 



THE THOUGHTS 181 

produces in him the most unjust and criminal passion 
that can be imagined ; for he conceives a mortal hatred 
against this truth which reproves him, and which 
convinces him of his faults. He would wish to anni- 
hilate it ; and not being able to destroy it in itself, he 
destroys it as much as he can in his knowledge and in 
that of others ; that is to say, he takes every pains to 
hide his faults from others and from himself, and he will 
not allow anyone to show them to him nor to see them. 

" It is without doubt an evil to be full of faults ; but 
it is a still greater evil to be full of them and to be 
unwilling to acknowledge them, since this is to add the 
fault of a voluntary illusion. We do not like that 
others should deceive us ; we do not think it fair that 
they should desire to be esteemed by us more highly 
than they deserve ; it is not, then, fair that we should 
deceive them, and that we should wish them to esteem 
us more highly than we deserve. 

" So, when they discover only imperfections and vices 
which we actually have, it is patent that they do us no 
wrong, since it is not they who are the cause of them, 
and that they are doing us a service since they assist 
to deliver us from an evil which is our ignorance of 
these imperfections. We ought not to be offended by 
their knowing them, and by their slighting us, since it 
is right that they should know us for what we are, and 
that they should slight us if we are deserving of being 
slighted. 

" Such are the sentiments which would arise in a 
heart full of equity and justice. What then should we 
think of ourselves when we see in us a disposition 
quite contrary ? For is it not true that we hate the 
truth and those who speak it, and that we like them 



1 82 PASCAL 

to deceive themselves for our advantage, and that we 
want to be esteemed by them as being different from 
what we are in fact." 

In this severe strain the rigorous writer proceeds, 
doubtless with complete sincerity, but perhaps with 
less charity ; and the Article closes with the following 
paragraph : " Man, then, is only disguise, falsehood, 
and hypocrisy, both in himself and in regard to others. 
He does not want to have the truth spoken, he avoids 
speaking it to others ; and all these dispositions, so far 
removed from justice and reason, have a natural root 
in his heart." Probably most readers will feel as 
Voltaire did in reading such language, that they want 
"to take the side of humanity against this sublime 
misanthrope." Regarding fallen man as such, that is, 
as an abstraction, such language may be theologically 
justifiable of the unregenerate man, of one who has 
only " works done before justification " ; but this 
abstract man cannot properly be taken as the repre- 
sentative of mankind in general so long as we have 
such a text in the Bible as that which declares that 
"in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh 
righteousness is acceptable to Him." So much, per- 
haps, may be said, once for all, on such passages. 

Weakness of Man — Uncertainty of his Knowledge 

The next Article (iii.) is, in several ways, remark- 
able, dealing, as it does, with human weakness and 
with the uncertainty of our knowledge. But the 
sections here are not so closely connected as in the 
previous Articles. The author starts with some of the 
difficulties of judgment and knowledge — 



THE THOUGHTS 183 

" If one is too young, he does not judge well ; if too 
old, the same. If one does not reflect enough — ; if 
too much, he becomes obstinate. If one considers his 
work immediately after having done it, he is still ^too 
prejudiced ; if too long afterwards, he does not keep 
hold of it. Thus with pictures seen too far off and too 
near ; and there is only an indivisible point which is 
the true place. The other places are too near or too 
far, too high or too low. In the art of painting the 
point is determined by the perspective. But in truth 
and morality who will assign it ? " 

He then proceeds to point out the errors induced by 
the imagination, speaking of it as "this arrogant 
power, the enemy of reason, which delights to control 
and to dominate it, in order to show how much it can 
do in all things " ; and he declares that " it has estab- 
lished in man a second nature." One remarkable 
though brief paragraph deserves notice : " The imagin- 
ation disposes of everything; it makes beauty, justice, 
and happiness, which is everything in the world. I 
should much like to see the Italian book of which I 
know only the title, which, by itself alone, is worth 
many books, Delia Opinione Regina del Mondo. 1 . . . 
There is another source of error," he says, " sicknesses. 
They spoil the judgment and the sense. And if the 
serious maladies affect it sensibly, I doubt not that the 
smaller ones make a proportionate impression." 

Further on he declares : " There is a universal and 
essential difference between the actings of the will and 
all other actions. The will is one of the principal 

1 In Article xxiv. 91, Pascal says: "Force is Queen of the world, 
and not opinion ; but opinion is that which uses force. " In v. 5 he 
says : "Opinion is as Queen of the world, but Force is its tyrant." 



1 84 PASCAL 

organs of belief ; not that it forms belief, but because 
the things are true or false according to the aspect in 
which one regards them. The will, which finds more 
pleasure in the one than in the other, turns away the 
mind from comprehending the qualities of those things 
which it does not like to see ; and thus the mind, pro- 
ceeding along with the will, stops to consider the 
aspect which it likes, and so it judges of things by that 
which it sees of them." 

Here comes Pascal's explanation of man's proneness 
to error: "Man is only a subject of error natural and 
ineffaceable, without grace. Nothing shows him the 
truth; everything abuses him. These two sources of 
truth, reason and the senses, besides that they both 
lack sincerity, abuse each other in turn. The senses 
abuse the reason by false appearances ; and this very 
trickery which they practise on the reason they re- 
ceive from reason in their turn ; she revenges herself. 
The passions of the soul trouble the senses, and make 
false impressions upon them. They rival each other 
in falsehood and deception." 

Diversion 

The fourth Article has for its heading a subject 
which has a very prominent place in the teaching of 
Pascal, "The Misery of Man." Such was the title 
given by the Port Royal editors ; but, in point of fact, 
the subject treated is Diversion or Amusement — 
divertissement — in the etymological sense of the word, 
meaning that which diverts, turns aside, or distracts. 
It is not very easy to connect these fragments to- 
gether, yet some of them are of considerable interest. 



THE THOUGHTS 185 

Pascal introduces the subject of diversion in the 
following manner. When, he says, he considers the 
various agitations of men, the dangers and troubles of 
every situation, he feels inclined to think that a man's 
happiness should consist in remaining quietly at home. 
But when he looks more closely at the subject, he sees 
that our miseries come from our natural feeble and 
mortal condition, so that nothing can really console us. 

" Hence it comes," he says, " that men so much love 
noise and movement ; hence it comes that a prison is 
such a horrible punishment; hence it comes that the 
pleasure of solitude is a thing incomprehensible. And 
it is, in fact, the greatest source of felicity in the con- 
dition of kings that there is a perpetual endeavour 
to divert them and to procure for them all sorts of 
pleasures. . . . 

" Thus passes away all man's life. Men seek repose 
in combating certain obstacles; and, if they are sur- 
mounted, repose becomes insupportable. For we think 
either of the miseries which we have, or of those 
which threaten us. And even if we should see our- 
selves sheltered on all sides, weariness (ennui) on its 
own account would not fail to emerge from the depth 
of the heart, where it has natural roots, and fill the 
mind with its poison." And then comes an interesting 
illustration from gambling for money. Again he 
goes on — 

" The only thing which consoles us in our miseries is 
diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries. 
For it is this which principally hinders us from think- 
ing of ourselves, and which makes us insensibly ruin 
ourselves. Without this we should be in a state of 
weariness, and this weariness would drive us to a 



1 86 PASCAL 

more solid means of escaping from it. But diver- 
sion amuses us, and makes us arrive insensibly at 
death. . . . 

" Let us imagine a number of men in chains, and all 
condemned to death, where a certain number were 
each day killed in sight of the rest, so that those 
remaining saw their own condition in that of their 
fellows, and looking on them sorrowfully and hope- 
lessly, waited for their turn. It is an image of the 
condition of men." 

Here we have ever the refrain of Ecclesiastes : 
" Vanity of vanities : all is vanity." 



Certain popular Opinions 

The Article (v.) which stands next in our book is of 
a miscellaneous character, and is entitled " Reasons for 
some Opinions of the People"; and here the author 
says he means to write down his thoughts " without 
order, and not perhaps in a confusion without design, 
which," he says, "is the true order, and will always 
indicate my object by the very disorder. I should do 
too much honour to my subject if I treated it with 
order, since I wish to show that it is incapable of it." 
The meaning of all this is obvious, and it is very like 
Pascal. An interesting fragment is the third, which 
the Port Royalists judiciously suppressed. He is 
speaking of the great evil of civil wars. Even a bad 
king who comes to the throne by succession is hardly 
so mischievous. "The evil to be feared from a fool 
who succeeds by right of birth is neither so great nor 
so sure" — not quite a sentence to be printed in the 
reign of Louis xiv. 



THE THOUGHTS 187 

Here is a paragraph which connects itself with one 
already quoted. "The government founded upon 
opinion and imagination holds sway for some time, 
and this government is pleasant and voluntary; that 
of force holds sway always. Thus Opinion is Queen 
of the world, but Force is its tyrant." 

" Epictetus asks why we are not offended if we are 
told that we have a headache, and that we are 
offended if we are told that we reason badly, or that 
we make a bad choice. The reason is, that we are 
quite certain that we have not a headache; but we 
are not so assured that we make a true choice. So 
that having no other assurance except that we see a 
thing in full view, while another as clearly sees the 
contrary, we are brought into suspense and surprise ; 
and still more when a thousand others deride our 
choice. For we must prefer our own lights to those of 
so many others, and that is bold and difficult. There 
is never such a contradiction in the senses." 



Detached "moral Thoughts 

In the next Article (vi.), " Detached moral Thoughts," 
there is the same lack of connection between the 
sections. Yet certain thoughts are prominent ; for 
example, the evil and the predominance of selfishness, 
and the separation of theory and practice. " All good 
maxims," he says, " are in the world ; we need only to 
apply them. For example, it is not doubted that we 
ought to risk our lives in order to defend the public 
good, and many do this ; but in the cause of religion, 
not. 

"Reason commands us much more imperiously 



1 88 PASCAL 

than a master; for in disobeying the one a man 
is unfortunate; in disobeying the other, he is a 
fool." 1 

We have in this Article a good many statements 
on the relation between custom and justice, some of 
which are slightly contradictory. Generally speaking, 
Pascal lays down the principle that justice is not an 
abstraction, but the embodiment of human custom. 
" As fashion (la mode) makes agreement, so also it 
makes justice." Again, "Justice is that which is 
established; and thus all our established laws will 
necessarily be regarded as just without being ex- 
amined, since they are established." In the previous 
Article (v. 4) he had said : " Why do we follow the 
majority ? Is it because they have more reason ? 
No, but more power." 

Here again we have some of his utterances on 
selfishness. " The Ego (Moi) is hateful. ... In a 
word, the Ego has two qualities ; it is unjust in itself, 
in making itself the centre of everything ; it is incon- 
venient to others, in that it wishes to enslave them. 
For every Ego is the enemy, and would like to be the 
tyrant of all the rest. You may take away its incon- 
venience, but not its injustice ; and thus you do not 
make it lovable to those who hate injustice ; you 
make it lovable only to the unjust, who find no longer 
an enemy in it ; and thus you remain unjust, and can 
please only the unjust." 

Here is a recurrence to his earlier teaching on the 
dissatisfaction which demands diversion and excite- 
ment : " In omnibus quietem quoesivi [Ecclus. xxiv. 11 J. 
If our condition was truly happy, we should not have 

1 The Port Royal edition strangely omits this section. 



THE THOUGHTS 189 

to divert ourselves from thinking of it in order to 
render ourselves happy." 

The subject of custom comes up again. He says: 
" Montaigne is wrong ; custom should be followed only 
because it is custom, and not because it is reasonable 
or just ; but people follow it for this sole reason, that 
they believe it to be just. If not, they would not 
follow it, although it were the custom ; for we do not 
like to be subject except to reason or to justice. 
Custom without that would pass for tyranny ; but the 
empire of reason and justice is not more tyrannical than 
that of delight. They are principles natural to man." 

We are here reminded of the question raised by 
Aristotle, whether men desire that which is really 
good, or what seems to them to be good; and the 
solution of the problem lies in the same direction. 
Men undoubtedly desire that which seems to them to 
be good ; but they do so on the assumption that what 
seems to them good is really good. If they had a 
doubt on the subject, they would not desire it. So 
with regard to the obligation of law. Men keep the 
laws because they are imposed by the society in which 
they live ; but they assume that the laws are imposed 
because they are just. 

Pascal goes on : " It is dangerous to say to people 
that the laws are not just ; for they obey them only 
because they think them just. And that is why they 
should be told at the same time that they should obey 
thern because they are laws, just as they ought to obey 
their superiors not because they are just, but because 
they are superiors. In that way all sedition is pre- 
vented if this can be made intelligible, and this is the 
proper idea of justice." 



190 PASCAL 

And here comes in a paragraph part of which is too 
well known to be omitted in this place: "Anyone 
who wishes to know fully the vanity of man has only 
to consider the causes and the effects of love. The 
cause of it is 'a something, I know not what,' 1 and 
the effects of it are frightful. This ' I know not what/ 
so small a thing as hardly to be recognisable, moves 
the whole earth, princes, armies, the entire world. 
Cleopatra's nose — if it had been shorter, the whole face 
of the world would have changed." 

Philosophy and Literature 
In the seventh Article, which treats of Philosophy 
and Literature, there are some striking thoughts. 
Thus : " Man is neither an angel nor a beast, and 
unfortunately one who tries to be an angel makes 
himself a beast." This thought comes from Montaigne 
(iii. 13) : " They want to put themselves outside them- 
selves and escape from being men. It is folly. Instead 
of transforming themselves into angels, they transform 
themselves into beasts. Instead of raising themselves, 
they lower themselves." 

" The heart has its order ; the mind has its own, 
which goes by principle and demonstration. The 
heart has another. We do not prove that we ought 
to be loved when we set forth the causes of love ; that 
would be ridiculous. Jesus Christ and St. Paul have 
the order of charity, not of intellect ; for their purpose 
was to warn, not to instruct. So with St. Augustine. 
This order consists principally in digression at each 
point. Let us have reference to the end so as to keep 
it always in view. . . . All the false beauties which 
1 Je ne sais quoi. Cf. Corneille, Bodogunc, i. 5 ; and Medte, ii. 6. 



THE THOUGHTS 191 

we blame in Cicero have admirers, and these in great 
number. . . . 

" To make sport of philosophy is truly to philoso- 
phise." 

Contradictions in Man 
The eighth Article deals with the " astonishing con- 
tradictions which are found in the nature of man with 
regard to truth, happiness, and several other things." 
It is here that we meet with some of those utterances 
which have brought upon Pascal the charge of Pyr- 
rhonism. After speaking of the two extremes of 
Pyrrhonism and Dogmatism, he goes on : " What then 
shall man do in this condition ? Shall he doubt of 
everything ? Shall he doubt if he is awake, if he is 
pinched, if he is burnt ? Shall he doubt if he doubts ? 
Shall he doubt if he exists ? It is hardly possible to 
go so far ; and I lay it down as a fact that there never 
has been a perfect and effective Pyrrhonist. Nature 
sustains impotent reason, and hinders it from carrying 
its extravagance so far. Shall a man then say, on the 
contrary, that he certainly possesses truth — he who, 
when pushed but a little, can show no proof of it, and 
is forced to let go his hold. What a chimera, then, is 
man ! what a novelty ! what a monster, what chaos, 
what subject of contradiction, what a prodigy ! Judge 
of all things, imbecile worm of the earth ; depositary 
of truth, common sewer of uncertainty and error; 
glory and refuse of the world ! Who will disentangle 
this confusion ? Nature confounds the Pyrrhonists, 
and reason confounds the Dogmatists. What will you 
become, O man, who seek to understand your true 
condition by your natural reason ? You cannot escape 



192 PASCAL 

one or other of these sects, nor subsist in either. 
Know, then, proud man, what a paradox you are to 
yourself. Humble yourself, impotent reason ; be silent, 
imbecile nature ; learn that man infinitely transcends 
man, 1 and hear from your master your true condition 
of which you are ignorant. Listen to God. 

" For, in short, if man had never been corrupted, he 
would enjoy in his innocence both truth and felicity 
with assurance. And if man had been nothing else 
but corrupted, he would have no idea either of truth 
or of beatitude. But, unhappy that we are, and more 
so than if there had been no greatness in our con- 
dition, we have an idea of happiness and cannot attain 
to it. We perceive an image of truth, and possess only 
falsehood. Incapable of being absolutely ignorant, and 
of knowing with certainty — thus is it manifest that 
we have been in a degree of perfection from which 
we have unfortunately fallen. 

" Astonishing, however, it is that the mystery which 
is furthest removed from our knowledge — that of the 
transmission of sin — is a fact without which we cannot 
have any knowledge of ourselves ! For it is beyond 
a doubt that there is nothing which gives a greater 
shock to our reason than to say that the sin of the 
first man has rendered guilty those who, being so far 
removed from this source, seem incapable of partici- 
pating in it. This devolution seems to us not merely 
impossible, it seems to us even unjust; for what is 
there more contrary to the rules of our miserable justice 
than to condemn eternally an infant incapable of voli- 

1 Compare the lines of Daniel — 

1 ' Unless above himself he can 
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man ! " 



THE THOUGHTS 193 

tion for a sin in which it seems to have so little part 
that it was committed six thousand years before it 
came into being ? Certainly nothing offends us more 
violently than this doctrine ; and yet, without this 
mystery, the most incomprehensible of all, we are in- 
comprehensible to ourselves. The knotty point of our 
condition takes its windings and its turnings in this 
abyss, so that man is more inconceivable without this 
mystery than this mystery is inconceivable to man." 
Again he says : " If man is not made for God, why is 
it that he is not happy except in God ? If man is 
made for God, why is he so contrary to God ? " 
Again : " Man knows not in what rank to place him- 
self. He has visibly gone astray and fallen from his 
true place without being able to find it again. He 
seeks for it everywhere with disquiet and without 
success in impenetrable darkness." 

Necessity of studying Religion 

Under Article ix. there are passages of deep in- 
terest but of somewhat too great length to be intro- 
duced here ; we must therefore be contented with 
extracts. Speaking of the antagonists of religion, 
Pascal remarks : " Let them at least learn the nature 
of the religion which they combat before combating 
it. If this religion were to boast of having a clear 
view of God and of possessing it clear and unveiled, 
it would be in opposition to this to say that we see 
nothing in the world which shows it with this clearness. 
But when, on the contrary, it says that men are in 
darkness and far from God, that He is hid from their 
knowledge, that this is, in fact, the name which He 
13 



194 PASCAL 

gives Himself in the Scriptures, Deus Absconditus (" A 
God that hidest Thyself," Isa. xlv. 15) ; and, finally, if 
it labours equally to establish these two things : that 
God has established sensible works in the Church in 
order to make Himself known to those who should 
seek Him sincerely, and that nevertheless He has 
covered them in such a manner that He will be 
perceived only by those who seek Him with their 
whole heart; what advantage will they derive when, 
in the negligence with which they make profession of 
being in search of the truth, they cry out that nothing 
shows it to them ; since this obscurity in which they are 
involved, and with which they reproach the Church, 
establishes only one of the things which the Church 
sustains without touching the other, and is so far from 
overthrowing its doctrine that it establishes it ? . . . 

" After that they boast of having sought without 
success in books and among men. But, in truth, I 
should say to them that which I have often said, that 
this negligence is intolerable. We are not here con- 
cerned with some trifling interest which concerns a 
stranger, so that we might justify such a mode of 
treatment ; this concerns ourselves, and ourselves alto- 
gether. 

" The immortality of the soul is a thing which 
means so much to us, which touches us so profoundly, 
that we must have lost all feeling to be indifferent on 
such a subject. All our actions and our thoughts must 
take a direction so different, according as there are 
eternal blessings to hope for or not. So that it is 
impossible to go forward with sense and judgment 
unless we regulate our course by our view of this point 
which ought to be our final object." 



THE THOUGHTS 195 

Passing on from those who regard these questions 
with indifference, he comes to a different class : " I can 
have only compassion for those who mourn sincerely 
in this doubt, who regard it as the last of misfortunes, 
and who, sparing no pains to escape from it, make of 
this inquiry their principal and most serious occupa- 
tions. But," he goes on, " for those who pass their life 
without thinking of this last end of life, and who, for 
this sole reason that they do not find in themselves 
the lights which persuade them of it, neglect to seek 
them elsewhere, and to examine to the very foundation 
whether this opinion is one of those which people 
receive with a simple credulity, or one of those which, 
though obscure in themselves, have nevertheless a 
very solid and immovable foundation, I consider them 
in a manner quite different." 

In a striking passage he sets forth the opinions of 
the unbeliever, and then comments upon them. "I 
know not," says the sceptic, " who placed me in the 
world, nor what the world is, nor myself. I am in 
terrible ignorance of all things. I do not know 
the nature of my body, nor of my senses, nor of my 
soul, nor of that part of me which thinks what I 
say, which makes reflections on everything and on 
itself, and knows itself no more than the rest. ... As 
I know not whence I come, so neither do I know 
whither I go. I know only that, in leaving this world, 
I fall for ever either into annihilation, or into the 
hands of an angry God. . . . And from all this I con- 
clude that I should pass all the days of my life with- 
out caring to inquire what is going to happen to me," 
and so forth. 

To all which Pascal replies : " Who would wish to 



196 PASCAL 

have as a friend a man who discourses in that manner ? 
Who would choose him out from others in order to tell 
him of his affairs ? Who would have recourse to him 
in his afflictions ? And, in short, of what service could 
such a one be in life ? 

"In truth it is the glory of religion to have for 
enemies men so unreasonable; and their opposition 
to it is so little dangerous, that, on the contrary, it 
serves for the establishment of its truths. For the 
Christian faith principally establishes these two things, 
the corruption of nature and the redemption of Jesus 
Christ. Now, I maintain that if those men do not 
serve to show the truth of redemption by the holiness 
of their manners, they serve at least admirably to 
show the corruption of nature by sentiments so un- 
natural. . . . 

" Nothing proves more powerfully an extreme weak- 
ness of mind than to be ignorant of the misery of a 
man without God ; nothing indicates more clearly an evil 
disposition of heart than not to wish that the eternal 
promises were true ; nothing is more cowardly than to 
be brave in opposition to God. Let them, then, leave 
those impieties to those who are so badly born as to 
be truly capable of them ; let them at least be honest 
men if they cannot be Christians, and let them recog- 
nise at last that there are only two sorts of persons 
that can be called reasonable : either those who serve 
God with all their heart because they know Him, or 
those who seek Him with all their heart because they 
do not know Him. 

"But as for those who live without knowing Him 
and without seeking Him, they judge themselves so 
little worthy of their own care that they are not 



THE THOUGHTS 197 

worthy of the care of others ; and one would need to 
have all the charity of the religion which they despise 
in order not to despise them even to the point of aban- 
doning them to their folly. But because this religion 
obliges us to believe that as long as they live they are 
capable of the grace which may enlighten them, and 
that they may, in a short time, be more replenished 
with faith than ourselves, and that, on the other 
hand, it is possible for us to fall into their blindness, 
we are bound to do for them that which we should 
wish them to do for us if we were in their place, 
and to implore them to have pity upon themselves, 
and at least to take some steps in the endeavour 
to find light." 



It is better to believe when we cannot prove 

The heading of this section in its complete form 
runs as follows: "Although it might be difficult to 
demonstrate the existence of God by the light of 
nature, the surest course is to believe it." We have 
here Pascal's theory of Tutiorism, which he set over 
against the Jesuit Probabilism, or even the modified 
form of the doctrine known as Probabiliorism. Prob- 
abilism we have already considered in connection with 
the Provincial Letters. Probabiliorism held that we 
should accept and act upon not a merely probable 
opinion, that is to say, an opinion supported by a single 
accredited doctor of the Church, but upon the more 
probable opinion, that which has several doctors in its 
favour or other similar supports. The doctrine of 
Tutiorism held that a man should accept the safer doc- 
trine ; for example, if there should seem to be a doubt 



198 PASCAL 

as to the existence of God, a man was safer who acted 
as though there were a God. So with the doctrines of 
the gospel. We can easily see that there is another 
side to this question without denying the validity of 
Pascal's argument. In the present section the subject 
is not fully discussed, and we must examine his writ- 
ings generally in order to find his complete teaching 
on the subject. 

Speaking here of God, he says that just as we 
believe there is an Infinite without our being able to 
describe its nature, so we can quite understand that 
there is a God without knowing what He is. "We 
know the existence of the infinite and are ignorant of 
its nature, because it has extension like us, but not 
boundaries like us. But we do not know either the 
existence or the nature of God, because He has neither 
extension nor bounds. But by faith we know His 
existence; in glory we know His nature. Now I 
have already shown that one may well know the exist- 
ence of a thing without knowing its nature. . . . Who 
then will blame Christians for not being able to give 
a reason for their belief, since they profess that they 
hold a religion of which they are unable to render a 
reason. They declare, in explaining it to the world, 
that it is 'foolishness' [1 Cor. i. 19], and yet you 
complain that they do not prove it. If they proved it 
they would not keep their word ; it is in lacking proofs 
that they are not lacking in sense. . . . 

" You have two things to lose, the true and the 
good ; and two things to stake, your reason and your 
will, your knowledge and your blessedness ; and your 
nature has two things to flee from, error and misery. 
Your reason is no more wounded in choosing the one 



THE THOUGHTS 199 

than the other, since you must necessarily make a 
choice. There is one point settled. But your blessed- 
ness ? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering 
that God is. Let us estimate these two chances : if 
you gain, you gain everything; if you lose, you lose 
nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He 
exists. — That is admirable : yes, we must wager ; but 
perhaps I wager too much. — Let us see. Since there 
is equal risk of gain and of loss, if you had only to 
gain two lives for one, you might still wager. But if 
there are three lives to gain, you must needs play Csince 
you are under the necessity of playing) ; and you would 
be imprudent, when you are under the necessity of 
playing, not to hazard your life in order to gain three 
at one cast when there is equal risk of loss and 
gain." . . . 

He afterwards gives another reason for acting on 
the principles of faith even when one does not actually 
believe. " Learn at least your inability to believe, since 
reason carries you to this, and that nevertheless you 
are unable to believe. Strive, then, to convince your- 
self not by heaping up proofs of the existence of God, 
but by the abatement of your passions. You would 
like to attain to faith, and you do not know the way ; 
you would like to heal yourself of unbelief, and you 
ask for the remedy; learn of those who have been 
bound as you are, and who now wager all that they 
possess. These are men who know the path which 
you would follow, and who are cured of the malady 
of which you want to be cured. Follow the way 
by which they began; they lived as though they 
believed. By such means you will come to believe. . . . 
What have you to lose ? 



200 PASCAL 

" Now, what harm will befall you if you take this 
side ? You will be faithful, virtuous, humble, grateful, 
beneficent, a sincere friend, truthful. Certainly you 
will not have tainted pleasures, or glory, or delights- 
But will you not have other pleasures? — I tell you 
that you will have gain in this life, and that at every 
step you take in this way you will see so much of the 
certainty of gain, and so much of the nothingness 
of that which you risk, that you will know in the end 
that you have wagered for something certain, infinite, 
for which you have given nothing." 

Again he returns to his point, that, whilst faith 
produces good deeds, these also have a tendency to 
generate faith. " I should soon have quitted pleasures, 
they say, if I had faith. And I, on my part, tell you, 
you would soon have faith, if you had quitted plea- 
sures. Now it is for you to begin. If I could, I would 
give you faith. I cannot do this, nor therefore can I 
prove the truth of that which you say. But you can 
easily quit pleasures and prove whether that which I 
say is true." 

Over against these practical ways of attaining to faith 
he places the futility of abstract arguments. " The 
metaphysical proofs of God," he says, " are so remote 
from the reasoning of men, and so involved, that they 
make but little impression ; and even if that kind of 
argument should serve some, it would do so only whilst 
they considered the demonstration ; but an hour after- 
wards they would fear that they had been deceived." 
These are prominent thoughts with Pascal, and remind 
us of the language of Anselm. " I do not ask to under- 
stand that I may believe, but I believe that I may 
understand." 



THE THOUGHTS 201 

Nature and Marks of Religion 

The Articles" following (xi. xii.) deal with the nature 
and characteristics of religion. The former deals with 
the " marks of the true religion. " The true religion," 
he says, " should have as its mark, that it obliges one 
to love his God. That is most just ; and yet there is 
no other religion which has required it ; ours has. So 
also the true religion should recognise concupiscence and 
impotence in man; ours has done so. It should also 
have supplied remedies; one of these is prayer. No 
other religion has asked of God that we might love 
Him and follow Him. . . . 

" In order that a religion may be true, it must have 
known our nature. It must have known its greatness 
and its littleness, and the reason of both. What 
religion has known this but the Christian ? 

"The heathen religions are more popular, for they 
are external; but they are not adapted for more 
enlightened men. For such a religion purely intel- 
lectual would be better adapted ; but it would be of no 
use to the common people. The Christian religion 
alone is adapted for all, being both external and 
internal. It lifts up the common people to the in- 
ternal, and it humbles the proud to the external ; and 
it is not perfect without the two : for it is necessary 
that the common people should understand the spirit 
of the letter, and that the more enlightened should 
submit their mind to the letter. 

"The external should be joined to the internal in 
order to obtain from God ; that is to say, one should 
kneel, pray with his lips, etc. ... so that the proud 
man, who has not been willing: to submit himself to 



202 PASCAL 

God, may now be submissive to the creature [that is, 
to the body]. To expect succour from this external is 
to be superstitious ; to be unwilling to connect it with 
the interior is to be proud. 

"No other religion has proposed to man to hate 
himself. No other religion, therefore, can please those 
who hate themselves, and who seek a Being truly 
lovable. And these, if they had never before heard of 
the religion of a God humiliated, would embrace it at 
once. . . . 

" No religion but ours has taught that man is born 
in sin, no sect of philosophers has said it ; none, there- 
fore, has spoken the truth. . . . 

" This religion, which consists in believing that man 
is fallen from a state of glory and of communion with 
God into a state of sadness, penitence, and estrange- 
ment from God, but that, after this life, we shall be 
re-established by a Messiah who is to come, — this 
religion has always been on the earth. All things 
have passed away, but this has subsisted for which all 
things exist. . . . 

"The only religion which is opposed to nature, 
opposed to common sense, opposed to our pleasures, is 
the only religion which has always existed. 

" The greatnesses and the miseries of man are so 
visible that it is of necessity that the true religion 
should teach us, both that there is some great principle 
of greatness in man, and also that there is a great 
principle of misery. It must therefore give us a 
reason for these astonishing contradictions. 

" In order to make man happy, religion must show 
him that there is a God ; that we are bound to love 
Him ; that it is our true happiness to be in Him, and 



THE THOUGHTS 203 

our only misfortune to be separated from Him. It 
must also recognise the fact that we are full of dark- 
ness, which hinders us from knowing Him and loving 
Him ; and that thus our duties require us to love God, 
and our lusts turn us away from Him, so that we are 
full of unrighteousness. Religion must explain these 
oppositions within us to God and to our true good. It 
must teach us the remedies for these impotences, and 
the means of obtaining these remedies. Let us ex- 
amine, in this regard, all the religions in the world, and 
let us see whether there is any other than the Chris- 
tian religion that would yield satisfaction. . . . 

" What religion will teach us, then, to cure our pride 
and our lust ? What religion, in short, will teach us 
our good, our duties, the weaknesses which turn us 
away from them, the cause of these weaknesses, the 
remedies which can cure them, and the means of 
obtaining these remedies ? None of the other religions 
can do this. Let us see what the Wisdom of God will 
do." 

Here speaks the Voice of Wisdom, which is identical 
with the Eternal Word : " It is in vain, O men, that 
you seek in yourselves the remedy for your miseries. 
All your lights can only succeed in making you know 
that it is not in yourselves that you will find either 
Truth or Good. The philosophers have promised this 
to you, but they cannot give it. They know neither 
what is your true Good, nor what is your true state 
How should they have given you remedies for your 
Evils which they have not even known ? Your princi- 
pal maladies are pride, which separates you from God ; 
lust, which makes you cleave to the earth ; and they 
have not got beyond entertaining one of these 



204 PASCAL 

maladies. 1 If they have given you God as your object, 
it has only been to exercise your pride; they have 
made you think that you were like to Him, and by 
nature conformed to Him. And those who have seen 
the vanity of this pretension have cast you over the 
other precipice, by making you believe that your 
nature was akin to that of the beasts, and have led 
you to seek for your happiness in the lusts which you 
share with the animals. That is not the way to heal 
you of your unrighteousnesses which those sages have 
not known ? 

" If there is one sole principle of all, one sole end of 
all, then all is by Him, all for Him. In that case the 
true religion must teach us to adore only Him, and to 
love none but Him. But, as it is impossible for us to 
adore that which we do not know, and to love any- 
thing but ourselves, religion which instructs us in 
these duties must also instruct us in respect to these 
impotences, and must also teach us the remedies. It 
teaches us that by one man all has been lost, and the 
connection between God and ourselves broken ; and, 
further, that by One Man the connection is repaired. 
We are born so opposed to this love of God, and it is 
so necessary, that we must needs be born in guilt, or 
God would be unjust. . . . 

" Christianity is strange ! It orders man to re- 
cognise that he is vile, and even abominable, and it 
bids him wish to be like to God. Without such a 
counterpoise, this elevation would render him horribly 
vain, or this abasement would render him terribly 
abject. 

" Misery counsels despair ; pride counsels presump- 
1 The Stoics pride and the Epicureans lust. 



THE THOUGHTS 205 

tion. The Incarnation shows to man the greatness 
of his misery by the greatness of the remedy which 
has been necessary." 

Impotence of Reason : Study of the Scriptures 

Pascal dwells with emphasis upon man's inability to 
discover God, and on the need of the Scriptures and 
the miracles recorded there, in order to bring convic- 
tion of the truth of the gospel. So in Article xiii. he 
dwells upon the " submission and use of reason " ; after 
which he takes up the case of one (xiv.) who abandons 
this way and begins to read the Scriptures. In doing 
this he considers (xv.) the history of the Jews, next 
(xvi.) the typical character of the Ancient Law ; from 
which he proceeds (xvii.) to the great subject of Jesus 
Christ, entering upon the various proofs of His mission 
and character (xviii. and xix.). It may be well, before 
noting the concluding Articles, to give some extracts 
from the portion now described. 

Speaking of reason, he says : " The last proceeding 
of reason is to acknowledge that there is an infinity 
of things which surpass it. It is but weak, if it does 
not attain to such knowledge. But if natural things 
surpass it, what shall we say of the supernatural ? " 

Again : " The submission and the use of reason ; in 
this consists true Christianity. If we submit all to 
reason, our religion will have nothing mysterious and 
supernatural in it. If we offend the principles of reason, 
our religion will be absurd and ridiculous. St. Augus- 
tine says : ' Reason would never submit, if it did not 
judge that there are occasions when it ought to submit. 
It is then right that it should submit when it judges 



206 PASCAL 

that it ought to submit.' — Piety is different from super- 
stition. To carry piety on to superstition is to destroy 
it. Heretics accuse us of this superstitious submission. 
This is to do the very thing of which they accuse us." 

Here again are words worthy of being weighed at 
all times. He is dealing with those who demand a 
miracle in order that they may believe. "If I had 
seen a miracle, they say, I should be converted. How 
do they assure themselves that they would do a thing 
of the nature of which they are ignorant? They 
imagine that this conversion consists in an adoration 
of God which is a kind of commerce, and in a com- 
munion such as they fancy it. True conversion con- 
sists in annihilating oneself before this Universal 
Being, whom one has displeased so often, and who 
might lawfully destroy us at any moment ; in acknow- 
ledging that we can do nothing without Him; and 
that we have deserved nothing at His hands but His 
displeasure. It consists in knowing that there is an 
invincible opposition between God and ourselves ; and 
that without a mediator, we could have no communion 
with Him." 

Passing on to the need of the Scriptures (xiv.), he 
says : " We have pleasure in the society of others like 
ourselves. Miserable as we are, impotent as we are, 
they will not help us ; we shall die alone. We should 
therefore act as if we were alone; and in that case, 
should we build grand houses and the like? We 
should seek truth without hesitation; and if we re- 
jected it, we should show that we valued the esteem of 
man more than the search for truth." 

Taking up his Bible he finds (xv.) that "the 
Christian religion is founded upon a preceding reli- 



THE THOUGHTS 207 

gion " ; and this religion he finds very impressive. It 
is of one family, it is of great antiquity, it is singular 
in its duration. It has the most ancient law in the 
world, and it preserves books which, by their testi- 
mony, condemn the people who preserve them. 

In the fulness of time Jesus Christ came, but not 
in the earthly splendour expected by His countrymen. 
" The Jews," he says, " so loved the figures that they 
misunderstood the reality, even though it came at the 
time and in the manner predicted." 

"The Messiah, according to the carnal Jews, was 
to be a great temporal Prince; according to carnal 
Christians, 1 He is come to dispense us from loving 
God, and to give us sacraments which operate entirely 
without us. Neither the one nor the other is the 
Christian religion nor the Jewish. True Jews and 
true Christians have always expected a Messiah who 
would make them love God, and by this love triumph 
over their enemies." 2 

Pascal, like the Fathers, finds types of Christ every- 
where in the Old Testament (xvi.) : " The letter kills. 
All happened in figures. St. Paul gives us a key. 
Christ must suffer. A God is humiliated. Circum- 
cision is to be of the heart — true fasting, true sacrifice, 
true temple. The prophets have shown that all these 
things have a spiritual meaning. . . . Nature is an 
image of grace, and visible miracles are an image of 
the invisible." He uses strong language : " When the 
Word of God, which is true, is false literally, it is true 
spiritually. 'Sit Thou at My right hand.' That is 
false literally ; yet it is true spiritually. In these 

1 An undoubted reference to the Jesuits. 

2 Their spiritual enemies, temptations to evil. 



208 PASCAL 

expressions God is spoken of after the manner of men ; 
and this signifies only that God has the same kind of 
intention which men have when they seat another 
at their right hand. This, then, is a mark of the 
intention of God, not of His manner of executing it." 

Many striking and beautiful things are said in the 
Article (xvii.) on Jesus Christ, on His lowliness and 
His greatness. " What man ever had more renown ? 
The whole Jewish people predict Him before His 
coming. The Gentile people adore Him after His 
coming. The two peoples, Gentile and Jewish, regard 
Him as their centre. And yet, what man enjoys this 
renown less ? Of thirty-three years, He lives thirty 
without appearing. For three years He passes for an 
impostor ; the priests and the chief of the people reject 
Him ; His friends and His nearest of kin despise Him. 
Finally, He dies betrayed by one of His followers, 
denied by another, and abandoned by all. What part, 
then, had He in this renown ? Never had man so much 
renown; never had man more ignominy. All that 
renown has served only for us to render us capable of 
recognising Him ; and He had none of it for Himself. 

"Jesus Christ said great things so simply that it 
seems as though He had not thought them [to be 
great]; and yet so clearly that we can easily see 
what He thought of them. This clearness, joined 
to this simplicity, is admirable. . . . 

" Jesus Christ is a God whom we approach without 
pride, 1 and under whom we humble ourselves without 



In Article xviii. the evidences from the prophecies 
are brought forward, and in the next (xix.) those from 
1 Unlike the Stoics. 



THE THOUGHTS 209 

the testimonies of the apostles. If these cannot be 
depended upon, he argues, the apostles must have 
been deceived or deceivers. " The supposition that 
the apostles were impostors is very absurd. Let one 
think it out; let one imagine those twelve men, 
assembled after the death of Jesus Christ, plotting 
to say that He was risen. By this they attack all 
the powers. The heart of man is strangely inclined to 
levity, to changes, to promises, to gains. However little 
any of them might have been led astray by such attrac- 
tions — nay, more by the fear of prisons, tortures, and 
death, they were lost. Let one follow up this thought. 
"The style of the gospel is admirable in so many 
ways, and among the rest in hurling no invectives 
against the persecutors and enemies of Jesus Christ ; 
for none such are in any of the historians levelled 
against Judas, Pilate, or any of the Jews." Speaking 
of the false religions which confront Christianity, 
and specially of Mahometanism, he remarks: "Any 
man can do what Mahomet did ; for he did no miracles, 
he was not foretold. No man can do that which was 
done by Jesus Christ." 

Divine concealing and revealing 

Our Lord spoke more than once of the revealing of 
truth to some and concealing it from others; and 
Pascal (xx.) remarks : " God has willed to redeem 
men, and to open the way of salvation to those who 
should seek it. But men render themselves so un- 
worthy of it that it is right that God should refuse 
to some, because of their obduracy, that which He 
accords to others by a compassion which is not due 
14 



210 PASCAL 

to them. If He had willed to surmount the obstinacy 
of the most hardened, He could have done so by dis- 
covering Himself so manifestly to them that they 
could not have doubted of the truth of His essence ; 
as it will appear at the last day, with such thunders 
and such overthrow of nature, that the dead will rise, 
and the most blinded will see it. 

" It is not in this manner that He has willed to 
appear in His Advent of mercy, because, since so 
many men rendered themselves unworthy of His 
clemency, He has willed to leave them in the priva- 
tion of the good which they do not want. It was 
not, then, right that He should appear in a manner 
manifestly divine, and calculated to work absolute 
conviction in all men; but, on the other hand, it 
was not right that He should come in a manner 
so hidden that He could not be recognised by those 
who should sincerely seek Him. He has willed to 
make Himself perfectly recognisable by those; and 
thus, willing to appear plainly to those who seek Him 
with their whole heart, and to remain concealed from 
those who flee from Him with their whole heart, He 
so regulates His manner of revelation that He has 
given marks of Himself visible to these who seek 
Him, and not to those who do not seek Him. There 
is light enough for those who only desire to see, and 
enough of obscurity for those who have a contrary 
disposition. There is enough of clearness to enlighten 
the elect, and enough of obscurity to humble them. 
There is enough of obscurity to blind the reprobate, 
and enough of clearness to condemn them and to 
render them inexcusable." 

The thought here expressed is carried on throughout 



THE THOUGHTS 211 

the fragments contained in this Article. Thus (8) : 
"Jesus Christ came to blind those who see clearly, 
and to give sight to the blind ; to heal the sick, and 
let the healthy die; to call to repentance and to 
justify sinners, and to leave the righteous in their 
sins ; to fill the needy, and to leave the rich empty." 
So in the last fragment : " We understand nothing 
in the works of God, if we do not start from the 
principle that He has willed to blind some and to 
enlighten others." 



True Christians and true Jews have the same 
Religion 

" The religion of the Jews seemed to consist essen- 
tially in the paternity of Abraham, in circumcision, in 
sacrifices, in ceremonies, in the ark, in the temple, in 
Jerusalem, and, finally, in the law and in the covenant 
of Moses. I say that it consisted in none of those 
things, but only in the love of God, and that God dis- 
regarded all the other things " (xxi.). And this thought 
is worked out at length in the paragraphs following. 

The Knowledge of God only through Christ 

In the beginning of this Article (xxii.) Pascal gives 
an outline of his plan. Thus he puts down — 
" First Part : Misery of man without God. 
Second Part : Felicity of man with God. 
Otherwise. First Part : That nature is corrupt. 

[Proved] by nature itself. 
Second Part : That there is a Restorer. 
[Proved] by Scripture." 



212 PASCAL 

Further on he says : " The knowledge of God with- 
out the knowledge of man's misery produces pride. 
The knowledge of his misery without that of God 
produces despair. The knowledge of Jesus Christ 
produces the intermediate, because we there find both 
God and our misery. 

" All those who seek God apart from Jesus Christ 
and who stay in nature, either find no light which 
satisfies them, or they end by finding a means of 
knowing God and serving Him without a Mediator; 
and in this way they fall either into Atheism or into 
Deism, two things which are almost equally abhorred 
by the Christian religion. 

" We know God only through Jesus Christ. With- 
out this Mediator all communion with God is taken 
away ; through Jesus Christ we know God. All who 
have pretended to know God and to prove Him with- 
out Jesus Christ had only powerless proofs. But to 
prove Jesus Christ, we have the prophecies, which are 
solid and palpable proofs. And these prophecies, being 
fulfilled and proved true by the event, mark the cer- 
tainty of these truths, and therefore the proof of the 
divinity of Jesus Christ. In Him and by Him, then, 
we know God. Apart from that and without the 
Scripture, without original sin, without a necessary 
Mediator promised and come, we cannot prove God 
absolutely, nor teach good doctrine or good morality. 
But by Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ we prove 
God, and we teach morality and doctrine. Jesus 
Christ, then, is the true God of men. 

" But we know at the same time our misery, for 
this God is no other than our restorer from our misery. 
Thus we cannot know God well except in knowing 



THE THOUGHTS 213 

our iniquities. — Thus those who have known God 
without knowing their misery have not glorified Him, 
but have glorified themselves. Quia non cognovit 
per sapientiam, placuit Deo per stultitiam prcedica- 
tionis salvos facere [1 Cor. i. 21]. 

" Not only do we know God only by Jesus Christ, 
but we know ourselves only by Jesus Christ. We 
know life and death only through Jesus Christ. 
Apart from Jesus Christ, we know not what is our 
life, nor what is our death, nor what is God, nor what 
are we ourselves. Thus without the Scriptures, which 
have only Jesus Christ for their object, we know 
nothing, and see only obscurity and confusion in the 
nature of God and in our own nature." 



Thoughts on the Miracles 

Again and again Pascal returns to the miracles, and 
in this respect is perhaps less in harmony with existing 
modes of thinking than in most of his utterances. It 
may, however, turn out that Pascal is nearer the truth 
on this subject ; and, at anyrate, he has some admirable 
remarks on the place of miracles. 

"Miracles enable us to discriminate doctrine, and 
doctrine to discriminate miracles. — There are false 
miracles and true. There must be a mark in order to 
know them, otherwise they would be useless. Now 
they are not useless ; on the contrary, they are funda- 
mental. Now the rule which we receive 1 must be 
such that it does not destroy the proof which the true 
miracles give of the truth, which is the principal end 
of the miracles. Moses gives two rules : When the 
1 Qu'il donne — meaning somewhat uncertain. 



214 PASCAL 

prediction is not fulfilled (Deut. xviii. 22), the prophecy 
is false. When they do not lead to idolatry (Deut. 
xiii. 4), they are true. Jesus Christ gives one (St. Mark 
ix. 38) . . . We are to judge of the doctrine by the 
miracles ; and we must judge of the miracles by the 
doctrine. All that is true, but there is no contra- 
diction. ... If there were no false miracles there 
would be certainty. If there were no rule to dis- 
tinguish them, miracles would be useless, and there 
would be no reason for believing. Now there is, 
humanly speaking, no human certainty, but we have 
reason. 

" There are three marks of religion : Perpetuity [of 
doctrine], a good life [in its adherents], and miracles. 
There are those who destroy perpetuity by their 
doctrine of probability ; a good life by their morals ; 
miracles by destroying either their truth or the 
inferences to be drawn from them. 1 



Miscellaneous Thoughts on Religion 

The last two Articles (xxiv. and xxv.) contain a 
number of fragments less easy to classify, the former 
being described as Pensees diverses, and the latter 
being composed of Thoughts published for the first 
time since 1842. A few of these fragments may be 
offered here. The first is one which has been often 
quoted : — 

" The Heart has its reasons which Reason does not 
know. We see it in a thousand things. I say that 
the heart naturally loves the Universal Being, and 

1 Reference to Jesuits. See Provincial Letters, particularly the 
fifth. 



THE THOUGHTS 215 

also itself naturally, according as it is addicted to the 
one or the other ; and it hardens itself against the one 
or the other according to its choice. You have rejected 
the one and maintained the other. Is it by reason that 
you love ? It is the heart which feels God, and not 
the reason. This is what we mean by Faith — God 
sensible to the heart, not to the reason. 

"There are two ways of convincing men of the 
truths of our religion : the one by the power of reason, 
the other by the authority of the speaker. People 
do not make use of the latter, but of the former. They 
do not say: You must believe this, because the 
Scripture which says it is divine ; but they say : You 
must believe for such or such a reason, — and these are 
feeble arguments, reason being always flexible." Here 
we have one of Pascal's favourite contentions — the 
insufficiency of reason. It is not quite agreed as to 
the class of persons here intended. Possibly Montaigne 
was in his mind; but there can hardly be a doubt 
that, in part at least, he was thinking of Descartes. 

" Religion is a thing so great that it is right that 
those who will not take the trouble to inquire into it 
because it is obscure, should be deprived of it. What 
do they complain of, then, if it is of such a nature 
that they could find it out by inquiring into it ? . . . 

" The Prophecies, even the miracles and the proofs 
of our religion, are not of such a nature that we can 
say they are absolutely convincing. But they are 
also of such a kind that we could not be said to be 
without reason in believing them. Thus there is both 
evidence and obscurity sufficient to enlighten one class 
and to darken the other. But the evidence is of such 
force that it surpasses, or at least equals, the evidence 



216 PASCAL 

on the other side ; so that it is not reason which can 
determine us not to follow religion; and thus it can 
only be the lust and malice of the heart. And by this 
means there is enough evidence to condemn and not 
enough to convince ; so that it is manifest that, in 
those who follow it, it is grace and not reason that 
makes them follow ; and in those who flee from it, it is 
lust and not reason that makes them flee. . . . 

"The conditions under which it is easiest to live 
according to the world, are the most difficult for living 
according to God, and vice versa. Nothing is so 
difficult according to the world as the religious life ; no 
life is more easy according to God. Nothing is easier 
according to the world than to occupy a great position 
and to have great wealth ; nothing according to God 
is more difficult than to live in such circumstances 
without being moulded by them. 

" As the two sources of our sins are pride and sloth, 
God has discovered to us two qualities in Himself to 
heal them : His mercy and His justice. The property 
of justice is to humble pride. However holy men's 
works may be, they are taught to say : ' Enter not 
into judgment ' ; and the property of mercy is to combat 
sloth by promoting to good works, according to the 
passage, 'the goodness of God leadeth thee to repent- 
ance' (Rom. ii. 4); and this other of the Ninevites: 
' Who knoweth whether God will not turn and repent, 
and turn away from His fierce anger, that we perish 
not ? ' (Jonah iii. 9). And thus so far is it from being 
the case that mercy encourages laxness, that, on the 
contrary, it is the quality that directly opposes it ; so 
that, instead of saying : If there were no mercy in God, 
it would be necessary to make all sorts of efforts in the 



THE THOUGHTS 217 

way of virtue, we should say, on the contrary, that it 
is because there is mercy in God that we should make 
all kinds of efforts." The reader will remember that 
this thought occurs more than once in Pascal. Spinoza 
also speaks of Pride and Sloth as the sources of all evil. 
As he died eight years after the publication of the 
Thoughts (1677), it is hardly likely that he derived 
the idea from Pascal. 

"People say a miracle would strengthen my faith. 
So they say when they do not see one. The reasons 
which, being seen from a distance, appear to bound our 
view . . . but when we reach that point we begin to 
look beyond it." It has been thought that there is a 
reference here to those who refused to accept the 
evidence of the " holy thorn " in favour of Port Eoyal ; 
but the remark is of universal application. 

"There are three means of believing: Reason, 
Custom, and Inspiration. The Christian religion, which 
alone has reason, does not acknowledge as its true 
children those who believe without inspiration; and 
this is not because it excludes reason and custom. 
The contrary is the truth. The mind must be opened 
to proofs, must be confirmed by custom, and lay itself 
open, by humiliation, to inspirations which alone can 
work a true and salutary effect, 'lest the cross of 
Christ should be made void' (1 Cor. i. 17). 

" There are only three sorts of persons : those who 
serve God, having found Him ; those who employ 
themselves in seeking Him, not having found Him; 
and those who have not found Him and do not seek 
Him. The first are reasonable and happy; the last 
are foolish and unhappy ; those between are unhappy 
and reasonable. . . . 



21 8 PASCAL 

" If there is a God, we should love only Him and 
not the transient creatures. The reasoning of the 
impious, in the Wisdom, is founded only on the 
assumption that there is no God. This granted, 
he says, let us enjoy the creature. It is our last 
resort. But if there were a God to love, he would not 
have come to this conclusion, but quite the contrary. 
And this is the conclusion of the wise: There is a 
God, let us not then enjoy the creature. Everything, 
therefore, which induces us to attach ourselves to the 
creature is evil, for that hinders us either from serving 
God, if we know Him, or from seeking Him, if we 
know Him not. Now we are full of concupiscence ; 
therefore we are full of evil ; therefore we ought to 
hate ourselves and everything which provokes us to 
any other attachment than God alone. . . . 

"In order to regulate the love which we owe to 
ourselves, we must imagine a body full of thinking 
members, for we are members of the whole body, and 
see how each member ought to love itself, etc. 

" If the feet and the hands had a particular will, 
they would never be in order except in submitting 
this particular will to the first will which governs the 
whole body. Apart from this they are in disorder and 
misfortune ; but in willing only the good of the body 
they procure their own good. . . . 

" God regards only the interior ; the Church judges 
only by the exterior. God absolves as soon as He sees 
penitence in the heart ; the Church when she sees it in 
the works. God wills to make a Church which is pure 
within, which confounds, by its internal and its entirely 
spiritual holiness, the internal impiety of proud sages and 
Pharisees ; and the Church wills to make an assembly 



THE THOUGHTS 219 

of men whose external manners shall be so pure as 
to confound the manners of the heathen. If there 
are hypocrites among them, but so well disguised that 
she does not discover their venom, she tolerates them ; 
for, although they are not received by God, whom they 
cannot deceive, they are by men whom they do 
deceive. And thus she is not dishonoured by their 
conduct, which appears holy. But you want the 
Church to judge neither of the interior, because that 
belongs only to God, nor of the exterior, because God 
stays only at the interior; and thus, taking away 
from her all choice of men, you retain in the Church 
the most dissolute, and those who dishonour her so 
grievously, that the synagogues of the Jews and 
sects of philosophers would have banished them as un- 
worthy, and would have abhorred them as impious. . . . 
" All great amusements are dangerous to the Chris- 
tian life ; but among all that the world has invented, 
there is none which is more to be feared than the 
theatre. 1 It is a representation of the passions so 
natural and so delicate, that it rouses them and gives 
birth to them in our hearts, and, above all, the passion 
of love, principally when it is represented as thoroughly 
chaste and virtuous. For the more innocent it appears 
to innocent souls, the more they are capable of being 
affected by it. Its violence pleases our self-love, which 
immediately forms a desire to produce the same effects 
which are seen so well represented ; and at the same 
time we make ourselves a conscience founded on the 
virtuous character of the sentiments which we see 
there, by which the fear of pure souls is removed, 

1 Pascal uses the word Com^die, but evidently refers to all theatrical 
representations. 



220 PASCAL 

since they imagine that there is no hurt to purity in 
loving with a love which seems to them so reason- 
able. Thus we leave the theatre with our heart so 
filled with all the beauties and all the delights of love, 
and the soul and spirit so persuaded of its innocence, 
that we are quite prepared to receive its first impres- 
sions, or rather to seek an opportunity of awakening 
them in the heart of another, in order to receive the 
same pleasures and the same sacrifices which we have 
seen so well depicted in the theatre." 

The passage already noted in connection with the 
Provincial Letters occurs in this place, and may here 
be given in its entirety : " If my letters are condemned 
at Rome, that which I condemn in them is condemned 
in heaven : Ad twum, Domine Jesu, tribunal appello. 
You yourself [probably the Pope] are corruptible. I 
feared that I might have written amiss, seeing myself 
condemned ; but the example of so many pious writings 
made me believe the reverse. It is no longer permitted 
to us to write well, to such an extent is the Inquisition 
corrupt or ignorant. 

" It is better to obey God than men. 

"I fear nothing, I hope for nothing. It is not so 
with the bishops. Port Royal fears, and it is bad 
policy to disperse them ; for they will fear no longer, 
and they will make themselves more feared. I do not 
fear even your censures [perhaps that on Arnauld], if 
they are not founded on those of tradition. Do you 
censure everything ? What ! Even my respect ? No. 
Say then what, or you will do nothing, if you do not 
point out the evil, and why it is evil. And this is 
what they will have much difficulty in doing. 

" I love poverty because He loved it. I love property 



THE THOUGHTS 221 

because it affords the means of assisting the miserable. 
I preserve fidelity to all. I do not return evil to those 
who do me evil ; but I wish them a condition similar 
to my own, in which one receives neither good nor evil 
from men. I endeavour to be just, truthful, sincere, 
and faithful to all men, and I have a tenderness of 
heart for those to whom God has united me more 
closely . . . and whether I am alone or in the sight of 
men, I have in all my actions a sense of the presence 
of God who shall judge them, and to whom I have 
consecrated all. These are my sentiments ; and every 
day of my life I bless my Redeemer, who has im- 
planted them in me, and who, of a man full of weak- 
nesses, of miseries, of concupiscence, of pride, and of 
ambition, has made a man exempt from all these 
evils by the power of His grace to which all the 
glory is due, since from myself I have only misery 
and error. 

"Nature has some perfections, to show that it is 
the image of God, and some defects, to show that it is 
only His image. 

" Man is not worthy of God, but he is not incapable 
of being made worthy of Him. It is unworthy of 
God to join Himself to miserable man; but it is not 
unworthy of God to take him out of his misery. 

" Eloquence is an art of saying things in such a 
manner — (1) that those to whom we speak may 
understand them without difficulty and with pleasure ; 
(2) that they may feel themselves interested, so that 
their self-love may lead them more willingly to re- 
flection. It consists, then, in a correspondence which 
we endeavour to establish between the mind and the 
heart of those to whom we speak on the one side, 



222 PASCAL 

and, on the other, between our thoughts and the ex- 
pressions of which we make use; and this takes for 
granted that we have studied well the heart of man 
so as to know all its powers, and then to find the 
just proportions of the discourse which we wish to 
adapt to them. We must put ourselves in the place 
of those who are to hear us, and make experiment 
on our own hearts of the turn which we give to our 
discourse, in order to see if the one is made for the 
other, and if we can assure ourselves that the hearer 
will be, as it were, forced to yield. We ought to restrict 
ourselves, as much as possible, to the simple and 
natural, and not make great that which is little, nor 
little that which is great. It is not enough that a 
thing be beautiful, it must be appropriate to the sub- 
ject, so that there may be nothing in excess and 
nothing lacking. 

"Atheists ought to say things which are perfectly clear. 
Now, it is not perfectly clear that the soul is material. 

"Unbelievers the most credulous. They believe 
the miracles of Vespasian in order not to believe 
those of Moses." 



Thoughts published since 1842 

" The ordinary world have the power not to think of 
that which they do not want to think about. Do not 
think of the passages of the Messiah, said the Jew 
to his son. Thus do ours often. Thus are false re- 
ligions preserved, and even the true in regard to many 
persons. But there are some who have not the power 
of thus preventing themselves from thinking, and who 
think the more from being forbidden to think. Such 



THE THOUGHTS 223 

persons get rid of false religions and even of the true, 
if they find no solid proofs of it. 

" Nothing is so insupportable to man as to be in 
complete repose, without passions, without business, 
without amusement, without application. He then 
feels his nothingness, his abandonment, his insufficiency, 
his dependence, his impotence, his emptiness. Imme- 
diately there will issue from the depths of his soul 
weariness, darkness, sadness, chagrin, vexation, despair. 

"I regard Jesus Christ in all persons and in our- 
selves. Jesus Christ as Father in His Father, Jesus 
Christ as Brother in His brethren, Jesus Christ as poor 
in the poor, Jesus Christ as rich in the rich, Jesus 
Christ as teacher and priest in the priests, Jesus Christ 
as sovereign in the princes, etc. For being God, all 
that He has that is great is by His glory, and it is 
by His mortal life that He has whatever is mean and 
abject in Him. For this He has taken this unhappy 
condition, so as to be able to be in all persons, and a 
model of all conditions. 

" Fear death out of danger, and not in danger, for 
one must be a man. 

" The Eternal Being is always if He is once. 

" We implore the mercy of God, not that He may 
leave us in peace in our vices, but that He may deliver 
us from them." 



The Pyrrhonism of Pascal 

It may be well to add here a few words on what has 
been called the Pyrrhonism or Scepticism of Pascal. 
And a few words may suffice for two reasons. In the 
first place, it would be impossible to treat the subject 



224 PASCAL 

here exhaustively ; and, in the second place, the work 
has been done so ably by Victor Cousin and Alexander 
Vinet that it is unnecessary to add anything to what 
they have said so well. 

Different views have been taken of this subject, 
some writers denying altogether the appropriateness 
of the phrase in reference to Pascal, others maintaining 
that whilst he could not be called a religious sceptic, 
he might properly be so termed in the philosophical 
sense, whilst others have gone so far as to declare that 
he might be called an atheist ! 

The absurdity of this last statement need hardly be 
insisted upon. Not only is an atheist not a sceptic, 
but no reader of Pascal's writings can fail to recog- 
nise the fact that he was, in the deepest sense of the 
words, a devout Christian. There is, however, more 
reason for classing him among philosophical sceptics, 
since he did most certainly deny the possibility of 
arriving at religious truth by the mere exercise of 
reason. 

Let us glance for a moment at some of his own 
statements, and then we shall perhaps be better able 
to understand his meaning. In one place 1 we have 
the following : " Pyrrhonism is the truth ; for, after 
all, men before Jesus Christ did not know where they 
were, nor whether they were great or small. And 
those who have said the one or the other, knew nothing 
of it, and divined without reason and by chance ; they 
even erred always in excluding the one or the other. 
Quod ergo ignorantes quceritis, religio annuntiai 
vobis" 

Again : 2 " All their principles are true, those of the 
1 Havet, Article xxiv., Fragment 1. 2 xxv. 29. 



THE THOUGHTS 225 

Pyrrhonists, of the Stoics, of the atheists, etc. But 
their conclusions are false, because the opposite prin- 
ciples are also true." 

On this section M. Ha vet remarks : " Man is in- 
capable of knowing with certainty (i. 1); this is the 
principle of the Pyrrhonists ; and, according to Pascal, 
this principle is true. But man is equally incapable 
of absolute ignorance. This is the opposite principle, 
and it is also true (cf. viii. 1). In the same way 
the Stoical principle is true, that man is essentially 
rational, and that order is his law. But the opposite 
principle is also true, that man is essentially animal, 
and that pleasure is his law. The principle of the 
atheists is true, that the evil which is in man and in 
nature testifies that the world does not obey a divine 
will. According to Pascal, the reconciliation of all 
these contradictions is found in Original Sin. Man 
was made for the knowledge of the true and for the 
practice of the good ; but he has fallen and has been 
given over to ignorance and to evil. The hand of God 
the Creator was on man and on the world; but by 
consequence of original sin, God has withdrawn Him- 
self, and His elect alone find Him again." 

To this two remarks may be added. In the first 
place, Pascal evidently has often in his mind the 
ontological argument of Descartes for the being of 
God ; and finding this unsatisfactory, he declares that 
Reason does not possess the authority which his con- 
temporary attributes to it. It was a time of breaking- 
ground, and neither Pascal nor Descartes need be 
blamed because the problem was not yet clear, much 
less its complete solution. Since those days, and since 
the time of Kant, the ontological argument has been 
*5 



226 PASCAL 

so stated as to be divested of the difficulties by which 
it was formerly surrounded. 

But Pascal was surely right when he held that men 
never had discovered the true nature of God without 
the aid of a supernatural revelation ; and here at least 
he had the authority of St. Paul : " The world by 
wisdom knew not God " (1 Cor. i. 21) ; and of a greater 
than St. Paul : " No one knoweth the Son save the 
Father : neither doth any know the Father, save the 
Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal 
Him " (Matt. xi. 27). 



CHAPTER VIII 

Destruction of Port Royal 

There are few sadder episodes in the history of any- 
great people than the story of the later years of 
Louis xiv. The greatness of this age has often been 
dwelt upon ; but too often it has been forgotten that 
the glory of the age of Louis xiv. belonged to its 
earlier history, before the destruction of civil and 
religious liberty had produced the effects which uni- 
versally result from such antecedents. To the latter 
part of the seventeenth century belonged two crimes 
of the darkest character, from which it may be truly 
said that France has never recovered — the Revoca- 
tion of the Edict of Nantes, and the destruction of 
Port Royal. In both cases the Government — that 
is to say, the King — was influenced by the same 
sentiment, the determination to bring about unity of 
religious belief and practice, and the destruction of 
heresy. 

Undoubtedly Louis xiv. was induced to believe that 
Port Royal was heretical ; and it may be well to glance 
back over the history which has been partially told in 
the preceding pages. The ruin of Port Royal was 
certainly brought about by the enmity of the Jesuits ; 
and this enmity proceeded from causes partly of a 



228 PASCAL 

doctrinal character, partly personal. As has been 
already remarked, the original sin of the Arnaulds, the 
great upholders of Port Royal, had been the line taken 
by the grandfather of the Mere Angelique in gaining a 
suit against the Jesuits. But this offence might have 
been forgotten but for the prominent part taken by 
the family in the defence of St. Cyran, and so of 
Jansenism. Whether the Jesuits have been rightly 
charged with Pelagianism or not, at least they were 
the vehement opponents of Augustinian doctrine as 
taught by Jansenius. 

But this was not all. The Jansenists were noted 
for their high code of morals and their indisposition 
to relax the demands of the gospel in the manner 
often charged against the Jesuits. This was specially 
brought forward in Arnauld's Treatise on Frequent 
Communion, in which he insisted upon the necessity 
of such repentance as led to newness of life, in which 
the love of God had part. We have seen how Pascal 
attacked the adversaries of the Jansenists in the Pro- 
vincials. In addition to these differences, the success 
of the schools of Port Royal gave great offence to the 
Jesuits, who gave much attention to the work of 
education in their own way. 

We have seen how the condemnation of the five 
propositions, professedly taken from the writings of 
Jansenius, was brought about. This was done by 
Pope Innocent in 1653 ; and in 1656 Arnauld was 
expelled by the Sorbonne, and with his friends had to 
go into hiding. Soon afterwards the Jesuits obtained 
an order from Government to abolish the "little schools" 
of Port Royal. A slight check was put upon the 
hostile endeavours of their adversaries by the "miracle" 



DESTRUCTION OF PORT ROYAL 229 

of the Holy Thorn in 1656 ; but this was of short 
duration. 

The first demand made upon Port Royal was that 
its members should condemn the five propositions, which 
they did. But this did not satisfy their enemies, who 
caused a second formulary to be drawn up, in which 
the propositions were declared to contain the doctrine 
taught by Jansenius. The nuns protested their in- 
ability to judge of the contents of a voluminous work 
in Latin which they could not read, and refused to 
comply with the demand. As a consequence, the little 
schools were broken up, the novices and scholars were 
expelled from Port Royal des Champs, and the directors 
and confessors banished. In this same year (6th August 
1661) the Mere Angelique died. It was a true testi- 
mony which was borne of her, " She united a profound 
humility to a sublime genius." 

The Mere Angelique had expressed the belief that 
her death might end the persecution of the community ; 
it was rather the beginning than the end. The nuns 
remained " contumacious," either refusing to sign the 
formulary, or signing it only with an explanation. The 
signing probably cost the life of Jacqueline Pascal. 
" Her health," says Madame Perier, her sister, " was so 
shaken by all this business that she fell dangerously 
ill, and died soon after." It was a fulfilment of the 
language of Madame de Guemenee to the King's 
Jesuit Confessor, whom she was vainly endavouring 
to soften towards Port Royal : " The King makes 
princes of the blood, he makes archbishops and 
bishops, and he will make martyrs likewise." In 
1664 both houses were laid under interdict. In 
May 1666 de Saci was arrested and sent to the 



230 PASCAL 

Bastille, where he completed the revision of his trans- 
lation of the Bible (1668). 

In 1669 Clement ix., a man of peaceful disposition, 
issued a Brief of reconciliation, known as the Pacifica- 
tion of Clement ix. A great change instantly took 
place. Arnauld was received at Court; de Saci re- 
sumed his place as Confessor and Director at Port 
Royal. The recluses returned, and the nuns were re- 
leased from their confinement. It was a time of 
prosperity and happiness for the society at Port Royal. 
One great drawback, indeed, must be noted : Port 
Royal of Paris was separated from the mother house 
and placed under Jesuit management (1669). The 
nuns of Port Royal des Champs were allowed to 
receive pupils, but not to add any more to their own 
number. 

The relief afforded by the peace of Clement ix. was 
not to be of long duration. Again the nuns were 
required to affirm the condemnation of Jansenius and 
his doctrine. This had been the stumbling-block of 
Port Royal for many years. It had killed Jacque- 
line Pascal. It may have hastened the death of her 
brother, who died in the following year, aged thirty- 
nine. As we have said, the respite was but momentary. 
In 1679 the death of Madame de Longueville, a near 
relative of the King and a devoted friend of Port Royal, 
was the occasion for the renewal of hostilities. The re- 
cluses received an order from the Government to leave 
Port Royal at once. Many of them died in exile and in 
want. The nuns, deprived of their protectors, were 
exposed to cruel persecutions, forbidden to receive 
either novices or scholars, and deprived of the slender 
endowments by which they were maintained. The 



DESTRUCTION OF PORT ROYAL 231 

year 1684 saw the death of de Saci, who, from his 
retreat, had watched over and guided the society at 
Port Royal. 

Papal Bulls issued in the years 1705 and 1708 ordered 
the suppression of Port Royal des Champs, and the 
transference of the property to Port Royal de Paris. 
In the following year (1709) the Cardinal de Noailles, 
archbishop of Paris, most reluctantly, but constrained 
by Court influence, issued the decree for the extinction 
of the monastery of Port Royal des Champs, whilst 
the destruction of the buildings was ordered by the 
Council. 

It is a sickening story which tells of the expulsion 
of the nuns in cold and inclement weather, with the 
shortest notice and in the harshest manner. Some 
of them were old and infirm, yet no time was allowed 
them to make preparation for their departure. One 
fainted, another who had been bled the day before felt 
the bleeding return ; but it was with difficulty that 
they received the slightest consideration from the 
officer who was commissioned to expel them. 

The expulsion of the nuns was followed by the de- 
struction of the monastery, which was carried out in 
the following year (1711); and this again was followed 
by the demolition of the church, and, finally, by the 
exhumation of the bodies to the number of nearly 
three thousand. Who can deny that this work was 
a hideous crime ? Who can fail to discern the terrible 
reckoning exacted of the Church of France in the not 
distant future ? It was not the Port Royalists who 
were the chief sufferers, it was the Church and nation 
of France. The words of the wise man are seldom 
more applicable than to these victims of a cruel and 



232 PASCAL 

wicked persecution: "The souls of the righteous are 
in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch 
them. In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die ; 
and their departure is taken for misery, and their 
going from us to be utter destruction ; but they are in 
peace. For, though they be punished in the sight of 
men, yet is their hope full of immortality." 



INDEX 



Academy of sciences, 6. 
Antiquity, meaning of, 28. 
Arnauld, Agnes, 58. 
Arnauld, Antoine (M. de la 

Mothe), 2, 58. 
Arnauld, Antoine (the great), 58. 
Arnauld, Jacqueline Marie (Mere 

Angelique), 58 ; conversion, 59 ; 

reform of convent, 59 ; death, 

229. 

Belief, three means of, 218. 
Bellay, Bishop of (Camus), 35. 
Brewster, Sir David, account of 

experiment on Puy de Dome, 

17 ff. 

Conversion, first, 33 ; second, 53. 
Cycloid, treatise on, 25. 

Descartes, P. and, 7, 22, 23, 
177. 

Epictetus, 48, 68, 188. 
Escobar, moral theology of, 121. 
Experiments in Paris and Au- 
vergne, 17. 

Fluids, equilibrium of, 24. 
Forton, persecution of, 34 ff. 
Francois, St., de Sales, 80 ff. 

Granges, Les, convent of the 
Solitaries. 66. 



Health of Pascal, 36 ff. 
Holy Thorn, 127, 139. 

Jansenius, professor at Louvain, 
bishop of Ypres, friend of 
Arnauld, 61 ; student of St. 
Augustine, 75; his Augustinus, 
75 ; Five Propositions from his 
writings condemned, 76 ff. 

Jansenist influence, 33, 39. 

Jesuits, quarrels with, 21 ; moral 
theology of, 121. 

Love, Pascal on, 48. 

Man a reed, 176. 
Maynard, Abb<£, on Pascal, 119. 
Mere Angelique. See Arnauld. 
Miracle of Holy Thorn, 127, 139. 
Montaigne, 48, 68, 189. 

Nature abhors a vacuum, 13, 
Noel, F., dispute with P., 14. 

Old Testament, types in, 207. 

Pascal, Blaise, birth, 1 ; educa- 
tion, 2 ; mathematical genius, 
3 ; discovery in geometry, 5 ; 
conic sections, 7 ; removal to 
Paris, 8 ; discoveries in physics, 
13, 14, 16 ff. ; reproaches, 21 ; 
P. and Descartes, 22 ff. ; religion 
and science, 27 ; view of anti- 



234 



INDEX 



quity, 28 ; religious life, 32 ; 
first conversion, 33 ; bad health, 
36 ; friends (Duke of Roannez 
and others), 41, 47 ; death of 
father, 42 ; P. and sister Jacque- 
line, 33, 45, 46, 52 ; on Epictetus 
and Montaigne, 48, 68 ff. ; 
second conversion, 54 ; " Amu- 
let," 55 ; P. and Port Royal, 

64 ff. ; with Solitaries at Les 
Granges, 66; Provincial Letters 
(see) ; on conversion of the sin- 
ner, 67 ; later years, 138 ; char- 
acter, 154 ; Thoughts (see). 

Pascal, Etienne, position and mar- 
riage, 1 ; removal from Clermont, 
2; education of children, 2 ff., 
10 ; removal to Paris, 2 ; to 
Rouen, 9 ; difficulty with Gover- 
ment ; religious life, 30 ; Jan- 
senist influence, 33 ; return to 
Paris, 39 ; return to Auvergne, 
40 ; death, 42. 

Pascal, Gilberte (Madame Perier), 
1 ; her Life of Pascal, v ; account 
of religious influences, 30 ; on 
youth of P., 32. 

Pascal, Jacqueline, 1 ; on Descartes' 
visit to P., 22; pleases Riche- 
lieu, 9 ; deeper spiritual life, 
44 ; becomes a nun, 46 ; letter 
to her sister, 52. 

Pessimism of Pascal, 162. 

Port Royal, origin, 57 ; J. M. 
(Mere Angelique) abbess, 59 ; 
reforms convent, 59 ; growth 
of, 60 ; nuns removed to Paris, 
convent occupied by Solitaries, 

65 ; schools of, 66 ; Pascal ad- 
mitted, 66 ; return of nuns, 66 ; 
Louis xiv. and P. R., 227 ; 
required to condemn the Five 
Propositions, 229 ; under inter- 
dict, 229 ; suppression ordered, 
231 ; expulsion of nuns, 231 ; 
destruction of buildings, 231. 

Pride and Sloth, 216. 

Probabilism, 116. 

Provincial Letters, Augustine and 



Pelagius, 73 ; controversy be- 
tween Dominicans and Jesuits, 

74 ; the Augustinus of Jansenius, 

75 ; the Five Propositions con- 
demned, 76 ; controversy be- 
tween Arnauld and the Jesuits, 
77 ; Arnauld condemned by 
Sorbonne, 78 ; Pascal invoked, 
79 ; Provincial Letters begin 
with subject of grace, 82 ; 
Pascal's irony, 83, 86, 88 ; effect 
of the Provincials, 95 ; judgment 
of Voltaire, 96 ; continuation of 
controversy, 98 ; censure of 
Arnauld by Sorbonne, 102 ; P. 
assails the casuistry of the 
Jesuits, 112 ; fairness of Pascal, 
113 ; testimony of Chateau- 
briand, 114 ; attack on probabil- 
ism, 116 ; moral theology of 
Escobar, 121 ; P.'s judgment of 
P. Letters. 130 ; Latin transla- 
tion, 136. ' 

Pyrrhonism of P., 223. 

Rebours and P., 39 f. 
Religion and science, 28. 
Religious impressions, 30 ff. 
Richelieu, 9, 63. 

Roannez, Duke of, 41, 47, 55, 158. 
Rouen, Archbishop of (de Haiiay), 
35. 

St. Cyran, youth, 61 ; friendship 
with Jansenius, 61 ; knowledge 
of St. Augustine, 61 ; acquaint- 
ance with Arnaulds, 62 ; director 
of Port Royal, 62 ; enmity of 
Jesuits, 62 ; and of Richelieu, who 
puts him in prison, 63 ; estab- 
lishes a male community in con- 
nection with Port Royal, 64 ; 
death, 63. 

Singlin, sermon by, 53. 

Thoughts : posthumous, 137 ; pub- 
lished in imperfect form, 159 ; 
subsequent additions, 162 ; P.'s 
intention, 165 ; substance of 



INDEX 



235 



Thoughts, 170 ; chief subjects : 
greatness and misery of man, 
172 ; vanity of man, the effect 
of self-love, 179 ; weakness of 
man — uncertainty of his know- 
ledge, 182 ; diversion, 184 
certain popular opinions, 186 
detached moral thoughts, 187 
philosophy and literature, 190 
contradictions in man, 191 
necessity of studying religion. 
193 ; better to believe when we 
cannot prove, 197 ; nature and 
marks of religion, 201 ; impot- 



ence of reason, study of Scrip- 
tures, 205 ; divine concealing 
and revealing, 209 ; true Chris- 
tians and true Jews have the 
same religion, 211 ; knowledge 
of God only through Christ, 211 ; 
thoughts on the miracles, 213 ; 
miscellaneous thoughts on re- 
ligion, 214. 
Torricelli's experiments, 10. 

Vinet on Provincials, 80 ; on 

Thoughts, 165. 
Voltaire on Pascal, 96, 163. 



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